The Value of a Holistic Education

This article in Christian History struck a chord with me, “Elementary School: Medieval to Modern.” It is a brief notation on the educational philosophy of Jan Amos Comenius (1592-1670).

One section reads:

But he believed that education, though not in itself redemptive, could complement the gospel by fostering international restoration, unity, and peace. People have long understood that one potential benefit of a liberal education is the tolerance and generosity of spirit it can instill in its students. Rising above Europe's fractiousness, Comenius taught a strongly Christ-centered version of this old ideal.

In working to establish Dayspring for Christian Studies, I have run across both a prejudice against the use of any kind of general education, as well as a great appreciation for a well-rounded worldview curriculum. Dayspring’s mission is to engage the University with a Christian worldview. In large part, we do that by providing general core classes to students taught by faithful and studious Christians. A lot of people haven’t understood why we don’t just offer a bunch of Bible classes.

Too many ministers and Christians believe that to be well trained as a Christian means to have four years of evangelism and missions classes. Now, don’t get me wrong: those educational systems serve their purposes and have their role, but it likely isn’t the role of producing people who are well equipped to faithfully live in and exegete well their culture.

I think Comenius had it right. A good grounding in a broad range of topics and studies better prepares Christians to engage our world.

Emergent and Truth II: Can We Be Certain?

The Emergent and Postmodern penchant for uncertainty and our cultural captivity misses a couple of very important points when it comes to human beings as knowers. It is certainly true that we all see the world through lenses, and that our cultures often provide lenses for us that we know not of. But that then does not make it true that we are unalterably bound by our cultures, that language is a kind of game we cannot escape, that we cannot find any kind of epistemic objectivity, or that our belief system as Christians is a muddle of Western and Greek cultures more than is it a genuine representation of Christ and the Apostles.

So can we genuinely know things with any kind of objectivity or are we insurmountably bound by our communities? A good place to begin thinking about this would be the distinction between psychological objectivity and what we might call rational objectivity. Psychological objectivity describes a knower who is outside of or above any particular bias about an issue. While psychological objectivity may be rare or seem to be an impossible mental state, it really does exist. You are totally objective about the present temperature in Singapore. So it exists in any person’s catalogue of knowledge, but it may be trivial in many instances. A second note about psychological objectivity is that it is a good thing in several ways. We adhere to beliefs like the value of family and the good of voting in a democratic society through our cultural lenses. But we are not wrong on either count, and it would be a vice, for instance, to constantly regard your family with an affectionate disconnection.

Psychological objectivity appears to be the only kind of objectivity Emergent authors and pomos are willing to admit. But there is another that makes all the difference. The second form, rational objectivity, is simply the state of having good reasons for believing something, or, having good epistemic access to a thing itself. It is crucial to note the relationship between psychological and rational objectivity:

Being psychologically committed to a belief does not exclude rational objectivity,
and,
Rational objectivity is probably the more important of the two, and it is an entirely possible epistemic state.

If either one of those propositions were false (as some Emergent and all pomo authors claim), then we are in a pickle indeed. If bias made rational objectivity impossible, math teachers would not be a reliable source of mathematical instruction (they would be too biased). You can multiply the examples ad infinitum, leading to utter absurdity.

The best kind of example within a Christian context would be some apologetic matter such as the historical reliability of the Scriptures. I am psychologically committed to their historical reliability, but I have good reasons behind that belief. I do not believe the proposition, “the Christian Scriptures are reliable,” because I dreamt it or because a squirrel once spelled it out in nuts on my back porch. Those would obviously be bad reasons for believing anything, and if we are honest with ourselves, we know the difference between good and bad reasons.

Many Emergents believe they are doing us all a service by rejecting “Modern” or “Enlightenment” views of things and picking up on a much more Postmodern view of things. Exactly the opposite is true in too many cases to count.

A Great New Blog

Dr. Groothuis is a Philosophy professor at Denver Seminary, and of much less importance, a former professor of mine. (I hereby take full responsibility for all philosophical flops in ETC.) His new blog is The Constructive Curmudgeon. He has a way with words you don't find many places. As a teaser, this is from his latest visit to a booksellers convention:

Yet, by the grace of God (which also held back the "cleansing of the temple"), four things made it bearable....(4) I brought my TV-B-Gone with me. This is a universal television remote control device that turns off most televisions. I have been learning the esoteric skill of temporary television termination for several months now, but this surfeit of screens made it possible to break my personal record for TV kills in one day: thirteen terminations (eleven at the convention and two at restaurant before that). I was able to hit four of the God-knows how-many screens showing "Angel Wars"—a partial victory, but one I savor. One must use this blessed device discretely, since one doesn’t want to be caught zapping the great Idol of our age. The downside is that you have to usually watch the screen for up to a minute to properly aim the device. (It cycles through possible frequencies in sixty-nine seconds).

Emergent and the Role of Truth

Much is being said recently about the Emergent movement and the concept of truth, and I am not quite sure what to make of all of it. What I am gaining a better appreciation for, though, is that their needs to be more clear philosophical thinking brought into the discussion. Many emergent bloggers note that people seem to be speaking past each other on this topic and therefore not understanding each other, and that is certainly true. And while there are plenty of Emergent leaders affirming the importance of truth, there are also several “iffy” things being asserted about truth by plenty of other emergents. By no means would it be proper to claim guilt by association, but it would behoove us all to engage in some directed discussion.

There are, for example, a lot of broad and sweeping statements out there about capital “T” Truth as opposed to our articulation of truth. What that may mean, if we are to be precise, is that many emergents are affirming an absolute, or objective sense of truth, but denying a significant epistemological grasp of Truth. It is common for emergent writers to emphasize our “cultural captivity” and point out that we cannot assert anything without it being a result of our cultural influences. Is this a form of relativism, specifically epistemological relativism? It certainly borders on it, and if it is not (as many emergents state), then there needs to be some clarification on the usefulness and role of Truth if we cannot have an adequate epistemological grasp of it. In other words, if emergents want to hold to a deep role for our cultural captivity and the reality of metaphysical truth all at the same time, a significant relationship between the two needs to be clarified. Otherwise, metaphysical truth becomes irrelevant. I do not believe one can claim we are bound by our cultures in this kind of way and then simply assert the reality of metaphysical truth without clarifying what they mean by both assertions.

And this is exactly what I have worried about in the past. I am concerned that emergent thought is too comfortable with pomo philosophy without fully comprehending its consequences. As an example of its consequences, Richard Rorty, a pomo philosopher, has clearly seen and wholeheartedly adhered to epistemological and cultural relativism and the consequential irrelevance of metaphysical truth. He in fact labels his view “antirepresentationalism”: the point is not that metaphysical truth does not exist, the point is that we cannot and do not reflect it, and therefore it is utterly unpragmatic and thus irrelevant. So what naturally follows is that we cannot judge between right and wrong, and in a Christian context, we cannot judge between orthodoxy and heterodoxy. “Christ died for your sins” is then neither true nor false in an objective sense. In fact, “Christ died” suffers the same fate. Not a position a Christian should be in.

In my next couple of posts I will be responding to some of what I am seeing out there on the blogosphere when it comes to the Emergent movement, truth, and epistemological relativism. I think a good place to begin will be to address the issue of certainty and being “bound” by our cultures (a connection between objective truth and our grasp of it). Hopefully we can all bring a little clarification and direction to the discussion.

Eugene Peterson: Spirituality for the Wrong Reasons

I ran across this great interview with Eugene Peterson in Christianity Today, and I think it is worth the time to read and reflect upon. Thanks to Steve at Out In The Sticks for the link!

In the interview, Peterson reflects on the “daliyness” of Christian spirituality and the hollowness of relevance. As Steve points out in his post, it is interesting that the editor of The Message decries relevance so quickly. A couple of snippets:

I have a friend who is an expert at this sort of thing. He's always saying, "You've got to identify people's felt needs. Then you construct a program to meet the felt needs." It's pretty easy to manipulate people. We're so used to being manipulated by the image industry, the publicity industry, and the politicians that we hardly know we're being manipulated.

This impatience to leave the methods of Jesus in order to get the work of Jesus done is what destroys spirituality, because we're using a non-biblical, non-Jesus way to do what Jesus did. That's why spirituality is in such a mess as it is today….

How do we meet the need? Do we do it in Jesus' way or do we do it the Wal-Mart way?

And then the quote in Steve’s post is great:

I think relevance is a crock. I don't think people care a whole lot about what kind of music you have or how you shape the service. They want a place where God is taken seriously, where they're taken seriously, where there is no manipulation of their emotions or their consumer needs.

Why did we get captured by this advertising, publicity mindset? I think it's destroying our church.

Os Guinness has made the point well that relevance is not only an idol that diverts our attention from God, but it is a fickle idol as well. As soon as we catch up with the latest cultural wave, the leading edge has passed us by and we are left looking old.

In the balance between communicating the Gospel to a culture in ways it can understand and holding to the everlasting principles of the faith, there is a wrong way to go. If we were to err in one direction or the other, there is an error with more inherent danger than the other. And too often, it is the direction a lot of evangelicals take in their insatiable pursuit for relevance.

Flaming and Civility: Virtual vs. the Real World

So I received a comment yesterday:

“you’re a moron.”

That is all it said, and it was, of course, anonymous. It is buried somewhere in my old posts and I have not been able to find it, so I can’t even tell if I really was a moron or not.

This kind of thing always causes me to reflect a bit on the means of blogging and electronic communication in general. There is a powerful sense of disconnection and depersonalization that comes with the virtual world, and I wonder if anonymity has a kind of vice inducing power over a lot of people.

Anonymity, for one thing, makes us bold when we would otherwise be more thoughtful and measured with our remarks. In a public, face-to-face conversation, few people would consider that comment an appropriate way to behave. But once all accountability is removed, then deep motivations and twisted character traits are revealed.

I think what I worry about more and more is that the depersonalization of the virtual world is creeping into our face-to-face interactions. I worry that people deem that kind of crass, infantile and base behavior appropriate when they encounter something or someone with which they disagree or simply don’t understand. I guess any daytime talk show may serve as evidence for this concern.

I am finishing a book I hope to review soon, Uncommon Decency: Christian Civility in an Uncivil World, in which the author, Richard Mouw, makes the case for civility as a kind of public virtue for the Christian. One of the goals of the book is to convince individuals that civility is the best way of interacting with your fellow human being, and is certainly a powerful way of communicating the Gospel with a world that doesn’t know Christ. Although I disagree with some of his thoughts, I believe the basic thrust of the book is vital: civil interaction with your fellow human being is a kind of a virtue, and the sort of conversation displayed by my flamer is actually a character flaw-a vice.

Dayspring Center for Christian Studies

Dayspring Center for Christian Studies is still on track for launcing this fall. We bought some ad space on a local radio station, KGFT100.7, and I have been talking to local youth pastors and Christian schools about students looking for college credit. Very exciting!

As some of you know, I transitioned jobs this spring and that has put a small kink in my blogging habits. But I am still hoping to stay in the swing of things as I find my new rhythm.

And just in case you are interested in looking at Dayspring, all our information is on the web page including registration.

Every Thought Captive in the News

blog, blog, blog

This is the second time ETC has made it into the local paper. The last time was a bit of interaction with the emergent community in Colorado Springs, and here it is the lead thought on a good article on religious blogging.

The author, Paul Asay, is becoming a friend, and has done a really good job of getting some thoughful responses from several of the bigger evangelical blogs.

Is There Something Missing In This Declaration Against Poverty?

If you follow religion and politics closely, you are sure to be aware of the Sojourners organization. Recently they organized a delegation to the G8 Summit in order to help deal with the issue of world poverty. A noble goal indeed. But we are not judged only in accordance with the nobility of our goals. Here is part of the text of their declaration contained in a news piece:

We also applaud momentum being built by grass roots campaigns around the world who are addressing these issues and pledge to mobilize our energies, in partnership with faith leaders from the Global South, to realize common goals emerging from these campaigns and the Millennium Development Goals:

Debt – The recent agreement on 100% debt cancellation for eighteen of the world’s poorest countries represents a major step forward that should now be expanded to include all multilateral creditors and more impoverished and heavily indebted nations.

Aid – The moral scandal of extreme poverty requires that the wealthy nations do much more to assist the poorest countries in fighting poverty, hunger and disease through a dramatic improvement in the quantity and quality of aid. We are also united in the call for good governance and an end to the corruption that undermines all nations and people. Conditions attached to aid and debt cancellation must not be used to reinforce existing patterns of inequality that undermine pro-poor policies of local governments.

Trade – The structural inequities and power imbalances in trade rules that tilt toward the rich nations at the expense of impoverished nations must be reformed so that people can earn a sustainable income and the private sector can generate jobs and wealth for the common good. Rich countries must reform their subsidies to prevent the dumping of produce on world markets and strengthen special and differential treatment for poor countries so that they are able to protect vulnerable producers and develop new industries.

Though there is a bit of emphasis on what I consider to be the primay goal in dealing with world poverty-the governmental structure of nations-it is subusmed within the perceived responsibility of rich nations. Rich nations can give aid all day long (and have been for decades), but if toatlitarian regims are not eliminated, will that aid make it to the people who need it the most? History tells us "no."

I applaud the efforts and intentions of Sojourners, but I wonder if their political philosophy has created a blind spot in their declaration.

The Story We Find Ourselves In: A Review

The Story-McLaren
Originally uploaded by Phil Steiger.

In this continuation of Neo and pastor Dan’s story, McLaren does not succeed in giving us much that is genuinely insightful or with great impact. Besides a couple of genuine moments in the story line in which characters appear to come to terms with God and their spirituality (even then, though, McLaren is extremely shy of the concept and the word “conversion”), there is not much in either the fiction or the theology to recommend.

One general point of critique would be the postmodern penchant for story and dialogue in which no clear point is made and, allegedly, no side is taken. As philosophers no less than Aristotle and Davidson have pointed out, a good story or metaphor has a plot or makes a point. What is a metaphor or a story but a clever and unique way of saying something fairly specific? Dialogue simply for the sake of dialogue is basically (and maybe literally) meaningless. Christ did not speak in parables in order not to make a point.

As for the theology, most of what McLaren has to say in this second part of his trilogy is wrapped in politics, an obvious adherence to evolution, and his clear aversion things traditionally evangelical. The only “bad guys” in this work are caricatures of traditional evangelicals. At times McLaren seems to toy with Monism, Pelagianism, and a general lack of definition of sin and redemption. The concept of redemption looms large in his book, but it is difficult to pinpoint exactly what needs to be redeemed except white evangelicals and conservative politics. In other words, sin does not play the role it needs to in order for McLaren’s version of redemption to be meaningful.

At one point near the end of the story when McLaren is laying the foundation for the third book’s plot, his theology hits the surface. Dan and Neo are reflecting on the death of one character and Dan is questioning him about heaven and hell. Neo is talking around the issue and Dan presses him on the point. Neo’s, and apparently McLaren’s, response is, “Why do you always need to ask that question?” Neo then continues to evade giving a clear or distinct answer to the question. The answer to why the question of heaven and hell needs to be answered is obvious-because it is the one final question every single human being ever born needs to face. Seems to me that a caring and thoughtful response would not be a gloss but an answer.

Unless you are interested in understanding the theology of the emergent church movement, I would not recommend this book.

Serious Times: A Review

SeriousTimes
Originally uploaded by Phil Steiger.

One of the waves of Christian authorship in popular level non-fiction right now deals with what a worldview is and how it gets worked out in a believer’s life. Among what is out there right now, there are a lot of relatively simple and shallow works, and then there are well researched and documented books that are wonderful in their own right. A few span the gap of popular appeal and readability and solid scholarship well, and Serious Times: Making Your Life Matter In An Urgent Day is one of those.

The book itself is fairly short and can be read easily in a few days or a week if one chooses. And due to the fair sized splash the book has made, there are a few resources and aids available to help in the study and application of the book’s topic matter. The accompanying website, www.serioustimes.com, is a good source for further reading and study for the Christian life.

The first three chapters, “The Second Fall”, “The World That Lives In Us”, and “The City of Dreadful Delight” set the cultural stage for the believer. What I appreciated most about this section of White’s work is that he deals honestly (though admittedly briefly) with a few of the major cultural shifts the West has seen. Specifically he deals well with the Enlightenment and its effects on culture. It seems that the Enlightenment has become a popular whipping boy in current church thought, and too often what is whipped is a straw-man or simply a caricature so distorted that it is simply false.

The second set of chapters are well organized around the topics of “Deepening our Souls”, “Developing Our Minds”, “Answering the Call”, and “Aligning With The Church.” Each chapter is worth the book not only in the concepts White puts across, but in the endnotes and resources for further study.

After each chapter there is a short, one to two page biography highlighting the point of the chapter. Often these biographies take over the substance and ideas of a book, but he has kept them brief enough and too the point so that they serve the broader purpose of the book quite well.

As a pastor, this is the kind of book that I would choose for a small group of believers who are serious about the call on their lives and/or interested in leadership within the church. Contrary to the books typically chosen for those kinds of leadership groups, this work is not specifically interested in leadership techniques. Instead, and to its great credit, it is interested in helping each and every believer live lives of significance, and in my opinion, it goes a long way toward reaching that goal.

Good Resource - Serious Times Website

Serious Times

I have recently finished reading the book that this website is based upon, and I enjoyed it greatly. It was a great, and rare, mixture of a work on Christian worldview being accessible and steeped in serious scholarship itself. I hope to get a review written on it, and in the mean time I would encourage you to take a look at it if you would like a book on this subject that will also provide a great resource for further reading.

What Is a 'Religious Point of View'?

My conversation with Public Theologian below has sparked a question for me: in matters of the public square, what compromises a “religious point of view”? This question is of amazing importance in our culture right now as a number of public evangelicals and others do their best to advocate for a Christian point of view while there are entire organizations dedicated to removing a religious point of view from the public square. Hence, the definition of what compromises a religious point of view is of pressing importance.

As a case in point, during the Terri Schaivo scenario I listened to Senators argue that we as a country cannot protect her life because that was a religious point of view and religion does not belong in legislation. I find that line of thought appallingly shallow and dangerous, but it highlights my question. As another case in point, many label the science of ID as a religious point of view, and therefore it cannot be seriously taken as science. So must the science that we are allowed to teach in public schools necessarily lead to atheistic conclusions? No matter how scientific a point of view is, if it leads to some form of Designer or Theism, must it therefore be rejected? Apparently so.

So, what compromises a “religious point of view,” and more to the point, how should they be handled in the public square? Can a certain definition of a “religious point of view” necessarily exclude it from serious consideration in the broader public? (Now that I get to thinking about this, it will take far more than a post, and far more than a series of serious posts to appropriately address this topic-but, here goes…)

Are they views that are simply in accord with views held my one major religion or another? As uselessly broad as this proposal sounds, I would argue that it is more of a reality for us politically than we might imagine. The Senators who argued that legislation should not be in favor of Terri Schaivo living were espousing this point of view, and those who reject any form of scientific endeavor that may not lead to atheism are also espousing this view.

But as a principle, this proposal simply cannot stand. Christianity, for instance, views cold-blooded murder as wrong. Our laws see it the same way. So if this proposal were to stand as is, we must reject all laws prohibiting murder out of hand. These kinds of examples are multifold; so this definition should be rejected, and thus the reasoning behind the Senatorial and scientific views above must also be rejected.

Are they views that begin with expressly religious premises? In other words, must we reject all views as inappropriate for public consumption if the reasoning for those views begins something like, “because God said…” or “because my Holy Book says…”? As a definition of what a religious point of view is, we are closer to the truth than the last proposal. At least here we are beginning on territory claimed by a certain religion, and supposedly reaching conclusions agreeable with that religion. In this way, when we assert the proposition, “this is a religious point of view,” we are meaning to say something like, “I am beginning with principles taught by a certain religion and reaching conclusions in accord with the same religion.” But, of course, it must be added that just beginning with, “because my Holy Book says…” does not guarantee conclusions that are actually amenable with that religion.

But even with views that are this expressly religious, there is no good reason to reject them out of hand in the public square. First, to do so would commit the genetic fallacy. In this context that would mean we reject an opinion about a matter simply because it comes from a certain sector of society or a certain point of view. We would not reject the truth of “the sky looks blue” just because it was uttered by a serial rapist. Second, the worth of any point of view in the public square is a function of its truth, not its adherents. So, if Intelligent Design wants to be heard in the larger scientific world, and its proponents have done their homework, it should be heard. Then and only then should its claims be considered as true or false. Instead, it is being prejudged in relation to its most typical adherents-conservative Christians. (That, in my opinion, is why it is not being given a hearing in the larger scientific world-not because it is 'unscientific'.)

So I am going to leave off here-this will get too long too quickly. I would love to hear other proposals and thoughts.

Pentecostal Pastors and Theological Influences

Pastor's Most Influential Books

Why is this the case?: Pastors who lead charismatic or Pentecostal congregations were by far the least likely to include books on theology among their chosen titles: only 2% did so.

I know polls are limited in their scope and actual sampling, but somehow I am not all that shocked. Don't get me wrong-I read books on church culture, leadership, theology, philosophy and so forth, and I have nothing against any of these categories as such. But I find it a little disheartening that Pentecostal pastors were the least likely to be influenced by a work of theology. (Remember-I am a Pentecostal pastor myself.)

Maybe this is why I can't find much in the way of serious Pentecostal scholarship in the areas of ecclesiology, theology and worldview. Can someone help??

An Official State Dogma?

Georgia Textbook Evolution Stickers Removed

Much has been said about this issue, but reading this article this morning, a familiar phrase caught my attention all over again.

Six parents sued to remove the stickers saying the disclaimers violated the principle of the separation of church and state. A federal judge in January agreed and ordered the stickers be removed.

Are we happy with there being an official state dogma on a scientific theory-a scientific position that is determined and mandated by the state? According to the logic of this ruling, not only is a non-Darwinistic theory inherently religious (a non sequitor itself), but the reigning Darwinistic theory is the only theory allowed in state run schools.

Are adherants to theistic evolution content with this state of affairs?

Still Morally Confused Over Stem Cells

The world of embryonic stem cell research has reached a fevered pitch in the last week with the announcement by the Koreans that they have successfully cloned an embryo and harvested its stem cells. These activities have been going on for some time now, but the “open” announcements are now coming to the surface.

First, I think it needs to be understood that in order to harvest stem cells from embryos, the embryo must be destroyed. So, if we were to translate what the Koreans (among others) have done into morally clear language, they have arbitrarily created a human and promptly murdered it.

But so many right now are supporting what has been done because of the potential benefit ESCs have for disease research. The catch, of course, is that it is still all potential whereas adult stem cells are already having clinical applications as well as showing pluripotent promise. FOX News Sunday recently interviewed a couple of people on this issue, and the public myopia and confusion regarding stem cells was readily apparent.

The first guest was formet NFL quarterback Boomer Esiason who has a son who suffers from cystic fibrosis. Here are a string of quotes that exemplify quite a few of our culture’s moral misconceptions. Chris Wallace is asking the questions.

WALLACE: So far, what does the research indicate about how helpful stem cells might be in treating cystic fibrosis?
ESIASON: You know, well, we don't know….Stem cell research is, you know, many people think in the scientific arena that there are answers there, that we might find a way to cure these diseases.

So Esiason recognizes that the promises are all potential at the moment.

WALLACE: How do you respond to that argument: that it's destroying life in order to save life?
ESIASON: Well, you know, I'm disappointed by that.

Esiason is disappointed that the fact that an embryo is a human being might dissuade some people from allowing their wholesale destruction. Wow-I have never heard of anyone who is “disappointed” at laws against the murder of innocent babies.

What needs to be learned from this part of the dialogue is that Esiason has bought the line that embryos are not human in any way whatsoever. The very next thing he goes on to say:

And with what the South Koreans have come forth with this past week, it just goes to show you that whether or not we support it here in this country, other countries are going to after this. And whether it be in Singapore or South Korea or even in Britain, it's going to be done, whether we support it or not.

It is going to be done anyway, so we might as well be the ones doing it. It’s a good thing the Western world didn’t think that way when it came to the attempted genocide of the Jewish people.

The next exchange was great to see. Esiason avoided answering the question about the personhood of the embryo, so Wallace called him on it-most journalists these days don’t know when they are being given the ol' soft-shoe.

WALLACE: But how do you answer the question? As you well know, there are a lot of very well-meaning people, just as well-meaning as you are, who view the destruction of those embryos as a destruction of life….how do you balance out science and legitimate moral concerns?
ESIASON: Well, when you are affected by a disease like we are, then certainly that's the balance that tilts you in favor of stem cell research.

And here lies one of the more powerful deceptions surrounding this issue-your emotional connection to one side of the problem gives you the moral latitude to “override” murder. Esiason goes on to say that if you were only in his shoes you would also favor embryonic stem cell research because of the emotional toil it causes. No doubt it is difficult, and no one is minimizing that, but it is not a moral trump card. If it were, than people in his position could morally legislate in favor of the vivisection of people with Down’s Syndrome in order to find a “cure” because a cadre of scientists is the former Czech Republic think it “holds a great deal of potential.”

Again, the very next thing out of his mouth:

I don't believe in human cloning. I'm not looking for Mini-me's to be running around with all of us.

Ah, but you do, Mr. Esiason. Its how this is being done even as you speak. What you don’t believe in is the science fiction version of adult-sized clones. But what is the actual, metaphysical difference between what has been done in Korea and what Boomer is allegedly against? Nothing.

Then Wallace brought on someone who is supposedly on the other side of the debate, and the answers didn’t get any better. Governor Mit Romney represented another point of view.

WALLACE: But if I may ask you, governor, specifically, you don't see, as I understand it, the use of these leftover embryos in fertility clinics as destroying life?
ROMNEY: That's right. I believe that when a couple gets together and decides that they want to bring a child into the Earth, and they go to a fertility clinic to do so, and if they're going to be through that process a leftover embryo or two, that they should be able to decide whether to preserve that embryo for future use or to destroy it; to have it put up for adoption or potentially to be used for research and experimentation, hopefully leading to the cure of disease.

This and the rest of his answer represents another gigantic fallacy that has permeated the whole right-to-life debate for over a decade. Romney’s argument is that humanity is tied to the value other people put on a life. So, it could be argued that if we all voted and decided that Romney’s life had little to no value to us, then scientists in the Ukraine could be allowed to run disturbing, but potentially useful, experiments on his devalued, and hence nonhuman, life.

I am sure that there would be all kinds of potential gains from such experimentation, and that plenty of emotionally upset people would see personal relief from such work. I am not seeing a down side here…

Reclaiming Moral Language: Part 1

In a recent post on stem cell research, I made reference to the reality that our culture is adept at euphamizing its way out of morality. We give palatable and semi-scientific names to technologies and actions that, if called by their real names, would raise ethical concerns. Jeff from Dawn Treader posed an important question: how should we go about combating this loss of moral language and reestablish a moral language in the church? Good and vital question indeed.

A recent read of mine dealt briefly with this issue. In his book, The Revenge of Conscience, J. Budziszewski lists a handful of means we can use to confront the loss of moral language; in the context of his book, it is a loss or suppression of moral memory. The book as a whole is a great read. His style of writing is abundantly clear and almost disarmingly straightforward. I recommend it as a thoughtful and clear piece of moral reasoning. Near the end of the work he lists several ‘tactics’ he sees as helpful in trying to help people regain or remember moral realities. The book deals with the establishment of moral language in the public square, and that is what I want to note here, but I also want to address the concept of reclaiming moral language within the church in another post.

He calls the first the act of dissipating smoke. Most people’s objections to Christianity are masked in pseudo-philosophical language, and many times helping them recognize their deeper issues can be illuminating. The next two are connecting the dots and releasing the catch. These refer to the acts of helping people see their way through their own denials or the logical extensions of their own train of thought. More and more I think it is a truism that many people have trained themselves to think poorly so they can feel justified in their own conclusions.

Budziszewski labels the next two approaches playing back the tape and calling attention to the obvious. By these examples he means to tell us that when we discuss with people in the form of well guided questions and questions that fold back on their own comments, we may be able to open them up to their suppression of moral issues. The Socratic method is a powerful tool, and for some of us, it is a difficult tool to master.

The last item on the list besides prayer is what he calls tightening the noose. There will come times in our discussion with people that we will be able to press an issue philosophically and talk our interlocutor into their own corner. Probably the most common form this kind of discussion may take in our cultural climate it the matter of truth. Many commentators on this blog, for instance, have disputed the existence of anything like absolute or objective truth. Those comments are easy to dispense with-if those writers really did not believe in objective truth, they literally could not, and therefore, would not disagree with me.

Pentecost Sunday Reflections

Being a minister in a Pentecostal denomination can be an interesting ride from time to time. I believe in Pentecostal doctrine, and what is sometimes called the "Pentecostal Distinctive," but I wonder from time to time if we charismatic types really get what being charismatic actually means. Because there are spectacular things that sometimes surface in our gatherings, I think many (inside and outside the Pentecostal circle) have put the cart in front of the horse, and equated being Pentecostal with the manifestations of the gifts instead of the empowering presence of the Spirit of God.

My last two weekend services were dedicated to asking ourselves what it meant to be a Pentecostal church, and to avoid answering in terms of spectacular manifestations. I fully believe in those, but I think the point of being Pentecostal is that they follow, not lead, in our theology and ecclesiology. (You can read the notes of the services here and here.)

I am interested in the development of a full-blooded Pentecostal theology and what it means for the life of the church. If you know of any good theological works along those lines, please pass them on!!

McLaren and Arguments-What Kinds are Necessary?

Brian McLaren has some interesting thoughts in one of his latest columns for Leadership Journal. The article, “Avoiding the Argument Party” makes the point that the church probably bickers too much over the wrong things in the wrong way. McLaren’s point is not that we simply should not argue and allow for a fuzzy tolerance of diverse opinions, but that we should argue in a more healthy fashion, possibly lay down old and divisive arguments, and pick up new and more useful issues to discuss.

At the end of the column he states:

Think of arguments bitterly dividing us today. (I won't mention any specifics, but we could all probably name the top three.) Then think of arguments that we aren't having, but probably should—like whether classic just-war theory needs to be re-appraised in light of nuclear and biochemical weapons, or what Christians should do if another genocide begins as one did in Rwanda a decade ago, or how to persuade people to better morality when legislation fails to do the trick, or how Christians should care for God's creation. Perhaps there are some uncomfortable but healthy arguments we should be guiding.

I wholeheartedly agree that the church should be a lot more careful and thoughtful when it comes to some of the doctrinal arguments it has, but I don’t think the answer is to replace the old issues with newer ones.

If I am guessing correctly, by older arguments, McLaren is probably referencing things like Calvinism/Armineanism, Pentecolstalism/Dispensationalism, Exclusivism/Universalism and other denominational distinctives. While these debates can become quite well-worn and divisive at times, they have survived through time exactly because of their necessity-they confront the fundamental questions of, “Who is God?” and, “What is our relationship to Him?”. These are hardly the issues that should be replaced. All these issues should be handled wisely and intelligently in the life of the church-and here I am going to sound a little emergent-it is a both-and situation, not an either-or.

Links Sans Context 5/3

Catez at Allthings2all has another review of the wonderful book, Total Truth. It is worth checking out the review, and if you are looking for a good worldview book, Total Truth is defenitely worth checking out.

Blogicus continues to cover the advance of adult stem cells. Who doesn't see what is going on in the world of embryonic vs. adult stem cells?

Joshua at Razor's Kiss posts some interesting thoughts on a Post-Christian culture. We all need to come to terms with these kinds of realities.

The ID Wedge Report has an entertaining piece on loose lips and the blantant attempt to squeeze theists out of the public square.

As for me, I am trying to get into the habit of blogging given my new work schedule, and it has been harder than I expected. I have read a couple of interesting books lately I hope to do reviews on, and I am reading a McLaren book that I want to review as well to keep up my reputation of being a critic of the emergent church.