I like the bumper stickers people put on their cars. I would never do it, but I enjoy the fact that others do. I also enjoy attributing to the owner of the car the (often simplistic) mindset portrayed by the bumper sticker. But seriously, folks, bumper stickers convey some of the deepest thoughts our culture is capable of right now. In the grocery store parking lot this afternoon, there was this sticker on a Wiccan’s VW Van:
Harm None, Do What You Will
My first thought was something along the lines: like harming my sense of reason and moral order by inflicting this bumper sticker on me?
Why do we begin with the premise, “harm none”? Is that really a universal, unassailable moral principle? Clearly it is not. The creators of the Teletubies and the Wiggles are case in point. The moral assertion to “harm none” is debatable at best and simplistic naiveté at worst.
If we do pass the “harm none” reflection test, we have to assume that there are activities we engage in that don’t do any harm to anyone. While we might be able to scrounge up a few trivial examples, the vast majority of our lives’ decisions cascade into the lives of others. As has been said by people smarter and deader than me – we do not live or act unto ourselves.
In the end, the Wiccan VW Van bumper sticker wanted to read, “Stop telling me what to do, and don’t complain if it bothers you!” Much less pithy; much more true.
Tuesday, November 09, 2010
Wednesday, November 03, 2010
The Letters Are Far From Losers
Mary Eberstadt
The Loser Letters
This book is a catch. The device Eberstadt uses is similar to the Screwtape Letters in that she uses a string of letters from one point of view to argue for the opposing point of view. The speaker in the book is a young atheist convert writing to the big New Atheists (always in a capitalized “You”) about where they have gone wrong. The tone is that of a smart but young adult who is serious about her desire for the atheists to be right about their ethics and naturalism. The point is an apologetic for where they go wrong in their arguments over and over.
One of the things I found surprising about the book is the storyline that unfolds through the letters. Who is this young lady known as A. F. Christian (A Former Christian)? How did her conversion from Christianity to atheism happen? What kinds of insights might she have for the New Atheists? And most importantly, what is happening to her now?
This is a popular-level book, so don’t expect any footnotes or jargon. But that does not keep Eberstadt from making some serious arguments and accusations and doing it well. I think this is a great way into the world of the current apologetic resulting from the New Atheists, and might even be a good breather from the more technical works.
The Loser Letters
This book is a catch. The device Eberstadt uses is similar to the Screwtape Letters in that she uses a string of letters from one point of view to argue for the opposing point of view. The speaker in the book is a young atheist convert writing to the big New Atheists (always in a capitalized “You”) about where they have gone wrong. The tone is that of a smart but young adult who is serious about her desire for the atheists to be right about their ethics and naturalism. The point is an apologetic for where they go wrong in their arguments over and over.
One of the things I found surprising about the book is the storyline that unfolds through the letters. Who is this young lady known as A. F. Christian (A Former Christian)? How did her conversion from Christianity to atheism happen? What kinds of insights might she have for the New Atheists? And most importantly, what is happening to her now?
This is a popular-level book, so don’t expect any footnotes or jargon. But that does not keep Eberstadt from making some serious arguments and accusations and doing it well. I think this is a great way into the world of the current apologetic resulting from the New Atheists, and might even be a good breather from the more technical works.
Separation of Church and State?
The role of the state vs. the role of religion and spirituality in public life is at once one of the most hotly contested issues in our culture and one that suffers from the largest set of misguided assumptions. The phrase, “separation of church and state,” is a bumper-sticker polemic whipped out at the first sign of religion and moral thinking intended to put a stop to all meaningful interaction – what a professor of mine used to call a “thought stopper.”
But this stunted shape of the public discourse has left us in a position where we are overly sensitive to and under-prepared to think about the role of religion (and, gasp, organized religion) in the public square.
A wonderfully clear thinker, Thomas Sowell, deals with a handful of the political misgivings of the “separation of church and state” in this article, but it is left to us to continue to deal with the very real and necessary role of religion in our culture.
But this stunted shape of the public discourse has left us in a position where we are overly sensitive to and under-prepared to think about the role of religion (and, gasp, organized religion) in the public square.
A wonderfully clear thinker, Thomas Sowell, deals with a handful of the political misgivings of the “separation of church and state” in this article, but it is left to us to continue to deal with the very real and necessary role of religion in our culture.
Tuesday, November 02, 2010
Desiring (and Knowing?) The Kingdom
James K.A. Smith
Desiring the Kingdom
Grand Rapids, MI. Baker Academic 2009.
It is a ubiquitous question for thinking and engaged Christians everywhere in every age: How do we understand the tension between the influence of the culture upon the church and the influence of the church upon the culture? In much of the recent evangelical literature on this subject, the focus has been on worldview. The big ideas have been ideas, beliefs, and doctrines and how Christians ought to transform theirs or recapture a distinctly Christian set. Smith sees the project in a different light. In fact, he sees the matter of influence to be upon our ideas and not necessarily through our ideas.
In many ways, Smith reaches back through modern and enlightenment-influenced theology and philosophy to Augustine and his belief that we are primarily affective creatures before we are rational creatures: we love before we think. And if the central questions about our character and formation are about our loves, we ought to get to what forms and shapes our loves. Smith’s fundamental claim and the one that drives the book is that “liturgies” form our loves, and thus, form us. Early on he notes, “The core claim of this book is that liturgies – whether ‘sacred’ or ‘secular’ – shape and constitute our identities by forming our most fundamental desires and our most basic attunement to the world. In short, liturgies make us certain kinds of people and what defines us in what we love.” (pg. 25)
Though the primary audience of the book is Christian education, Smith is aware, and I wholeheartedly agree, that his work has far-reaching application outside of the academy. If his premise is true, then this work has implications for the form and shape of the church as much as the university. I will briefly summarize the two sections of the book with some of his major points, and then offer some questions and analysis.
The first of two sections is devoted to an expression of anthropology, focusing on humans as loving/affective creatures and how those loves are formed. Cultural liturgies are examined and exposited as Smith makes the case for loving as the fundamental act of the human being in place of reasoning. Most worldview thinking, he argues, has the human creature exactly upside down as it emphasizes rationalistic behavior over affective influences.
For someone familiar with some of the basics of virtue theory, it will not come as a surprise that Smith argues that habits and practices play a large, if not primary, role in the forming of loves and the human character. He also employs the structure of “social imaginary” to describe how the practices of our lives and our worship form us as “noncognitive” directors of our actions and dispositions toward the world.
In the second section, Smith moves from anthropology to the more constructive task of dealing with the actual ins and outs of Christian worship. In the first section he argues that we need to form a new way of imagining and seeing the Kingdom of God, and in the second part he goes about dealing with how that happens. He asks, “In other words, what does worship say about Christian faith?” (pg. 134) It is a good question, and it deserves to be dealt with. What do our actual practices as Christians tell us about the shape of our faith in Christ? The term “practical atheist” may be overused in some contexts, but its point fits just fine with Smith’s larger idea. Are we as Christ followers worshiping (acting) in such a way as to make good sense of our faith?
While some reviewers have noted that the first part of the book may be stronger than the second, I think a degree of charity needs to be applied to this second part. I must admit that I lost some steam reading through to the end as Smith listed the various “practical” applications of his theory, but I still found them instructive and at times provocative.
I found a lot of Smith’s argument to be the kind of thing we ought to be talking about in our churches and universities. Are we guilty of a kind of Gnosticism in which we have disconnected what we believe from how we behave and what we do when we gather together? Have we lost a sense of being deeply affective creatures who are often moved by our experiences more than the latest lecture we heard? We need to wrestle with the implications of these issues. Given that, there are some assertions and arguments in the book to push against.
I’ll get a rather small thing out of the way first. From time to time Smith seems to erect scarecrows to knock down. One particular instance happens in his sidebar on The Moulin Rouge. His argument is that there is something valuable in the way love is portrayed (at least in its force upon the human being) there, and he notes, “And so one could suggest that the kingdom looks more like Montmarte than Colorado Springs!” (pg. 79) The play, of course, is on a stereotype of Colorado Springs as a kind of evangelical Mecca where nearly everyone is blindly evangelical and in lock-step with the Republican party. I was disappointed in that kind of broad-stroke ad hominem, but it isn’t the only place where part of his argument relies on pigeon-holing a set of evangelicals in a cubicle and knocking the whole thing down.
Then there are times where it seems Smith is too heavy-handed with other points of view in order to make his argument. The result of this tact is that he portrays an apparent disregard for and a simple denial of different points of view. Smith clearly argues that we are primarily affective/loving beings, but at times he appears to say we are exclusively affective/loving beings, showing a disregard for what seems to me to be the truth of the influence of ideas and reason. Instead of a both/and or primary/secondary approach Smith seems to want to have an either/or approach, which doesn’t help his overall case.
Early on Smith characterizes his foil as “rationalistic,” “a talking-head version of Christianity,” and provocatively enough a “’bobble head’ Christianity” where what goes on in the head far outweighs what goes on in the body (pg. 42). While this can be true of some forms of Christian theology heavily influenced by the enlightenment, is it true of all forms of theology concerned with true doctrine and the content of the propositional messages we proclaim? As seems to be the case with theologians and Christians influenced by a postmodern philosophy, there might be a temptation to make a category mistake here: all who disagree with us are disjointed enlightenment thinkers.
Another example of this kind of reasoning appears in the second half of the book on page 163, “The ‘image of God’ (imago Dei) is not some de facto property of Homo sapiens (whether will or reason or language or what have you); rather, the image of God is a task, a mission” (emphasis his). This is the kind of thing that shoots the argument he wants to make in the foot. We are put off by the unnecessary bifurcation of the two – property vs. mission – and we are on guard from then on. I find it obvious in both the Scripture and in the theology on the subject that the image of God is at least a set of properties endowed to us by God that make us, not worms, uniquely human. It is then be constructive to note that the image of God is a “task, a mission” that we have as creatures living under God.
I simply do not see a logical contradiction in his argument if he took love to be primary to reason, and then argued for the proper places of each in the liturgies of the believer.
There is a lot to be gained through Smith’s book, and he raises arguments we need to wrestle with that we don’t often think through. And for that, I think this book is very useful for Christian educators and pastors. But I hope that as he fills out this project he will avoid some of the unnecessary rhetorical and argumentative devices that hurt the overall argument.
Desiring the Kingdom
Grand Rapids, MI. Baker Academic 2009.
It is a ubiquitous question for thinking and engaged Christians everywhere in every age: How do we understand the tension between the influence of the culture upon the church and the influence of the church upon the culture? In much of the recent evangelical literature on this subject, the focus has been on worldview. The big ideas have been ideas, beliefs, and doctrines and how Christians ought to transform theirs or recapture a distinctly Christian set. Smith sees the project in a different light. In fact, he sees the matter of influence to be upon our ideas and not necessarily through our ideas.
In many ways, Smith reaches back through modern and enlightenment-influenced theology and philosophy to Augustine and his belief that we are primarily affective creatures before we are rational creatures: we love before we think. And if the central questions about our character and formation are about our loves, we ought to get to what forms and shapes our loves. Smith’s fundamental claim and the one that drives the book is that “liturgies” form our loves, and thus, form us. Early on he notes, “The core claim of this book is that liturgies – whether ‘sacred’ or ‘secular’ – shape and constitute our identities by forming our most fundamental desires and our most basic attunement to the world. In short, liturgies make us certain kinds of people and what defines us in what we love.” (pg. 25)
Though the primary audience of the book is Christian education, Smith is aware, and I wholeheartedly agree, that his work has far-reaching application outside of the academy. If his premise is true, then this work has implications for the form and shape of the church as much as the university. I will briefly summarize the two sections of the book with some of his major points, and then offer some questions and analysis.
The first of two sections is devoted to an expression of anthropology, focusing on humans as loving/affective creatures and how those loves are formed. Cultural liturgies are examined and exposited as Smith makes the case for loving as the fundamental act of the human being in place of reasoning. Most worldview thinking, he argues, has the human creature exactly upside down as it emphasizes rationalistic behavior over affective influences.
For someone familiar with some of the basics of virtue theory, it will not come as a surprise that Smith argues that habits and practices play a large, if not primary, role in the forming of loves and the human character. He also employs the structure of “social imaginary” to describe how the practices of our lives and our worship form us as “noncognitive” directors of our actions and dispositions toward the world.
In the second section, Smith moves from anthropology to the more constructive task of dealing with the actual ins and outs of Christian worship. In the first section he argues that we need to form a new way of imagining and seeing the Kingdom of God, and in the second part he goes about dealing with how that happens. He asks, “In other words, what does worship say about Christian faith?” (pg. 134) It is a good question, and it deserves to be dealt with. What do our actual practices as Christians tell us about the shape of our faith in Christ? The term “practical atheist” may be overused in some contexts, but its point fits just fine with Smith’s larger idea. Are we as Christ followers worshiping (acting) in such a way as to make good sense of our faith?
While some reviewers have noted that the first part of the book may be stronger than the second, I think a degree of charity needs to be applied to this second part. I must admit that I lost some steam reading through to the end as Smith listed the various “practical” applications of his theory, but I still found them instructive and at times provocative.
I found a lot of Smith’s argument to be the kind of thing we ought to be talking about in our churches and universities. Are we guilty of a kind of Gnosticism in which we have disconnected what we believe from how we behave and what we do when we gather together? Have we lost a sense of being deeply affective creatures who are often moved by our experiences more than the latest lecture we heard? We need to wrestle with the implications of these issues. Given that, there are some assertions and arguments in the book to push against.
I’ll get a rather small thing out of the way first. From time to time Smith seems to erect scarecrows to knock down. One particular instance happens in his sidebar on The Moulin Rouge. His argument is that there is something valuable in the way love is portrayed (at least in its force upon the human being) there, and he notes, “And so one could suggest that the kingdom looks more like Montmarte than Colorado Springs!” (pg. 79) The play, of course, is on a stereotype of Colorado Springs as a kind of evangelical Mecca where nearly everyone is blindly evangelical and in lock-step with the Republican party. I was disappointed in that kind of broad-stroke ad hominem, but it isn’t the only place where part of his argument relies on pigeon-holing a set of evangelicals in a cubicle and knocking the whole thing down.
Then there are times where it seems Smith is too heavy-handed with other points of view in order to make his argument. The result of this tact is that he portrays an apparent disregard for and a simple denial of different points of view. Smith clearly argues that we are primarily affective/loving beings, but at times he appears to say we are exclusively affective/loving beings, showing a disregard for what seems to me to be the truth of the influence of ideas and reason. Instead of a both/and or primary/secondary approach Smith seems to want to have an either/or approach, which doesn’t help his overall case.
Early on Smith characterizes his foil as “rationalistic,” “a talking-head version of Christianity,” and provocatively enough a “’bobble head’ Christianity” where what goes on in the head far outweighs what goes on in the body (pg. 42). While this can be true of some forms of Christian theology heavily influenced by the enlightenment, is it true of all forms of theology concerned with true doctrine and the content of the propositional messages we proclaim? As seems to be the case with theologians and Christians influenced by a postmodern philosophy, there might be a temptation to make a category mistake here: all who disagree with us are disjointed enlightenment thinkers.
Another example of this kind of reasoning appears in the second half of the book on page 163, “The ‘image of God’ (imago Dei) is not some de facto property of Homo sapiens (whether will or reason or language or what have you); rather, the image of God is a task, a mission” (emphasis his). This is the kind of thing that shoots the argument he wants to make in the foot. We are put off by the unnecessary bifurcation of the two – property vs. mission – and we are on guard from then on. I find it obvious in both the Scripture and in the theology on the subject that the image of God is at least a set of properties endowed to us by God that make us, not worms, uniquely human. It is then be constructive to note that the image of God is a “task, a mission” that we have as creatures living under God.
I simply do not see a logical contradiction in his argument if he took love to be primary to reason, and then argued for the proper places of each in the liturgies of the believer.
There is a lot to be gained through Smith’s book, and he raises arguments we need to wrestle with that we don’t often think through. And for that, I think this book is very useful for Christian educators and pastors. But I hope that as he fills out this project he will avoid some of the unnecessary rhetorical and argumentative devices that hurt the overall argument.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Christians and Politics
This piece in USA Today addresses one of the pressing issues for Christians in our current cultural climate – the relationship between the faith and the cut-and-thrust of politics. The author is concerned with how it seems that the involvement of religion in politics hasn’t lifted political life, but seems to have soiled religion. In a lot of ways, I think he is right. We have probably tied ourselves too much to political figures and victories (to the left and the right) instead of speaking and living the truths of the Christian faith in our world.
Politics are important and have serious real-world consequences, but Christians need to remember their first and deepest allegiance to Christ.
The article is hit and miss. He is concerned with the loss of civility in our public discourse, and I think we can agree on that. He, however, cites Jim Wallis of Sojourners as a seriously civil voice. That’s a joke. As long as you are willing to avoid any principled or absolute stands on faith or morals, Wallis is civil. Wallis is a cut-and-paste religious relativist and if you are to the right of him, politically and theologically speaking, you are a target for ad hominem attacks. Just ask Olansky of World Magazine.
Even in his conclusion, Krattenmaker gets some things right, and others wrong:
The wise course is not withdrawal from public life. The task is to find and hold an appropriate distance, a place from which faith can exert principled influence and inspire the body politic's best instincts and intentions.
Especially these days, politics as usual seems to drag all who play right into the gutter. That's no place for religion.
The Christian needs to recognize that faith should inform and influence politics, not the other way around – we should not withdraw from public life. But the Christian should never accept the position that faith belongs as an “appropriate distance” from public life. Our public life needs a core that only the Christian faith can provide.
Christians are called to do something that I’m not sure anyone else is doing: contend for the truths handed down to us while leading the way in civility and reasoned discourse. Do that now, and you will stick out like a sore thumb – in a good way.
Politics are important and have serious real-world consequences, but Christians need to remember their first and deepest allegiance to Christ.
The article is hit and miss. He is concerned with the loss of civility in our public discourse, and I think we can agree on that. He, however, cites Jim Wallis of Sojourners as a seriously civil voice. That’s a joke. As long as you are willing to avoid any principled or absolute stands on faith or morals, Wallis is civil. Wallis is a cut-and-paste religious relativist and if you are to the right of him, politically and theologically speaking, you are a target for ad hominem attacks. Just ask Olansky of World Magazine.
Even in his conclusion, Krattenmaker gets some things right, and others wrong:
The wise course is not withdrawal from public life. The task is to find and hold an appropriate distance, a place from which faith can exert principled influence and inspire the body politic's best instincts and intentions.
Especially these days, politics as usual seems to drag all who play right into the gutter. That's no place for religion.
The Christian needs to recognize that faith should inform and influence politics, not the other way around – we should not withdraw from public life. But the Christian should never accept the position that faith belongs as an “appropriate distance” from public life. Our public life needs a core that only the Christian faith can provide.
Christians are called to do something that I’m not sure anyone else is doing: contend for the truths handed down to us while leading the way in civility and reasoned discourse. Do that now, and you will stick out like a sore thumb – in a good way.
Wednesday, October 06, 2010
"I would want to be the first to put a pillow over its head"
Virginia Ironside is a British columnist of apparently some note who has hit the international scene recently by asserting on BBC that she would rather suffocate a suffering child than allow it to live. In the context of a conversation about whether abortion can be a kindness, she likened an embryo to “a couple of cells” and valued them as nothing compared to long-term suffering.
A handful of things strike me as a result of this video. Is it really out of the realm of reason to argue against current forms of abortion and euthanasia using the slippery slope argument? The destruction of a child in the womb is one form of murder, and we may feel a step disconnected from the morality of it because the child is still in the womb, but infanticide is another. And while the public debate up until recently has typically been in terms of “health of the mother” or “back-alley” abortions, the public debate is now creeping into the territory of simple infanticide for the sake of convenience. The slope seems to have been slippery, indeed.
To my knowledge only two types of cultures consider infanticide not murder: the utterly barbaric and backward and the overly cushy. We are the second: a culture inextricably linked to our creature comforts and convenience and thus we seem to be developing a particular distaste for an undefined (but clearly abhorred!) sense of “suffering.” The ubiquitous question asks itself, “Who gets to define ‘suffering’?” What kinds of people are so selfish as to impose their sense of “suffering” on another and chose life or death for them?
According to studies done in the last decade, about 90% of children diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. I guarantee you that if you talk with a family who has a Down syndrome child, they will be appalled. Down syndrome can be a relatively minor handicap. So what about other “minor” forms of handicaps? Where do we draw the lines and who gets to draw them?
The more I work this issue through, the more it seems to me that the only reasonable and solid ground for personhood is at conception. Anyplace else is fairly if not utterly arbitrary, and opens the door to having conversations about how old a child can be for us to legally kill it. The personhood of anyone is not correlative to the value we place upon it, or the potential suffering we expect for it. Your personhood is not a sliding scale with another’s hand on the dial.
The Christian knows that suffering, in all its forms, is not the gauge for the value of any human life. There is no denying suffering, and no Christian should downplay real pains and consequences, but no Christian should measure the value of any life based on “suffering.”
A handful of things strike me as a result of this video. Is it really out of the realm of reason to argue against current forms of abortion and euthanasia using the slippery slope argument? The destruction of a child in the womb is one form of murder, and we may feel a step disconnected from the morality of it because the child is still in the womb, but infanticide is another. And while the public debate up until recently has typically been in terms of “health of the mother” or “back-alley” abortions, the public debate is now creeping into the territory of simple infanticide for the sake of convenience. The slope seems to have been slippery, indeed.
To my knowledge only two types of cultures consider infanticide not murder: the utterly barbaric and backward and the overly cushy. We are the second: a culture inextricably linked to our creature comforts and convenience and thus we seem to be developing a particular distaste for an undefined (but clearly abhorred!) sense of “suffering.” The ubiquitous question asks itself, “Who gets to define ‘suffering’?” What kinds of people are so selfish as to impose their sense of “suffering” on another and chose life or death for them?
According to studies done in the last decade, about 90% of children diagnosed with Down syndrome are aborted. I guarantee you that if you talk with a family who has a Down syndrome child, they will be appalled. Down syndrome can be a relatively minor handicap. So what about other “minor” forms of handicaps? Where do we draw the lines and who gets to draw them?
The more I work this issue through, the more it seems to me that the only reasonable and solid ground for personhood is at conception. Anyplace else is fairly if not utterly arbitrary, and opens the door to having conversations about how old a child can be for us to legally kill it. The personhood of anyone is not correlative to the value we place upon it, or the potential suffering we expect for it. Your personhood is not a sliding scale with another’s hand on the dial.
The Christian knows that suffering, in all its forms, is not the gauge for the value of any human life. There is no denying suffering, and no Christian should downplay real pains and consequences, but no Christian should measure the value of any life based on “suffering.”
Friday, October 01, 2010
Looking for the Right Kinds of Leaders
Mike Adams is a bit of an iconoclast - a radical atheist turned Christian while an academic. He now authors columns that deal with the academic world, and from time to time touch on the state of American Christianity. This article, "Searching for Bonhoeffer" is a short and to-the-point criticism of the loss of doctrinal bravery in many of our churches. Though his particular whipping-boy is the mega-church, I am confident that his assessment applies to more places than we might at first imagine.
Though he does not mention Bonhoeffer in the article, he refers to a pastoral character that is not swayed by the spirit of the age, finds depth of meaning and lifestyle in Christ, and leads others through a world that mocks evangelical commitment. Adam's last two paragraphs are challenging:
Our culture is in rapid decline as we enter the Obama/post-Christian phase of American history. People are in search of bold and fearless pastors who will take a stand against evil in blunt and uncompromising - not coded and esoteric - language. In the end, pastors who refuse to mold the Gospel to accommodate the spiritual needs of the seeker or the financial needs of the church will be the last ones standing.
I predict that many of the mega-churches of today will be the shopping malls of tomorrow. When it is time to foreclose and go packing someone is going to have some heavy equipment to move. At least no one will have to pick up their cross.
Though he does not mention Bonhoeffer in the article, he refers to a pastoral character that is not swayed by the spirit of the age, finds depth of meaning and lifestyle in Christ, and leads others through a world that mocks evangelical commitment. Adam's last two paragraphs are challenging:
Our culture is in rapid decline as we enter the Obama/post-Christian phase of American history. People are in search of bold and fearless pastors who will take a stand against evil in blunt and uncompromising - not coded and esoteric - language. In the end, pastors who refuse to mold the Gospel to accommodate the spiritual needs of the seeker or the financial needs of the church will be the last ones standing.
I predict that many of the mega-churches of today will be the shopping malls of tomorrow. When it is time to foreclose and go packing someone is going to have some heavy equipment to move. At least no one will have to pick up their cross.
Monday, September 13, 2010
Moral Courage
Moral courage requires reform and needs a reformer. Moral complicity - anyone can do that.
Saturday, September 11, 2010
The Suicide of Thought
I was listening to a recording of Chesterton's Orthodoxy today, and ran across this prescient and insightful passage:
I have known people who protested against religious education with arguments against any education, saying that the child’s mind must grow freely or that the old must not teach the young. I have known people who showed that there could be no divine judgment by showing that there can be no human judgment, even for practical purposes. They burned their own corn to set fire to the church; they smashed their own tools to smash it; any stick was good enough to beat it with, though it were the last stick of their own dismembered furniture. We do not admire, we hardly excuse, the fanatic who wrecks this world for love of the other. But what are we to say of the fanatic who wrecks this world out of hatred of the other? He sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the non-existence of God. He offers his victims not to the altar, but merely to assert the idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne. He is ready to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one who never lived at all. (ch 8, The Romance of Orthodoxy)
This a great insight into the lengths taken by a secularist worldview when their philosphy's rubber meets the roads of education and ethics. Better to have no reason than the reason of God.
I have known people who protested against religious education with arguments against any education, saying that the child’s mind must grow freely or that the old must not teach the young. I have known people who showed that there could be no divine judgment by showing that there can be no human judgment, even for practical purposes. They burned their own corn to set fire to the church; they smashed their own tools to smash it; any stick was good enough to beat it with, though it were the last stick of their own dismembered furniture. We do not admire, we hardly excuse, the fanatic who wrecks this world for love of the other. But what are we to say of the fanatic who wrecks this world out of hatred of the other? He sacrifices the very existence of humanity to the non-existence of God. He offers his victims not to the altar, but merely to assert the idleness of the altar and the emptiness of the throne. He is ready to ruin even that primary ethic by which all things live, for his strange and eternal vengeance upon some one who never lived at all. (ch 8, The Romance of Orthodoxy)
This a great insight into the lengths taken by a secularist worldview when their philosphy's rubber meets the roads of education and ethics. Better to have no reason than the reason of God.
Thursday, September 02, 2010
Embryo Destructive vs. Actually Creative Research
Recently, a court ruling put a stop to the Obama administration’s work to pour tax dollars into embryo-destructive stem cell research. It was the right ruling for all kinds of reasons, not the least of which is that it is actually illegal to do what the Obama team tried to do.
But the best reasons are highlighted in Matt Bowman’s opinion in USA Today, “Pointless Research.” He notes that since to congressional ruling in 1995,
science itself has ended the debate. Adult stem cells actually help people, and a new technique creating "induced pluripotent stem cells" (IPSCs) gives every benefit of embryonic cells and more, without destroying embryos. Stem cell pioneer James Thomson told The New York Times that IPSCs spell the "end" of the embryonic stem cell field. Meanwhile, embryonic-destructive research has yielded little beyond tumors, wild promises and the demand for more taxpayer dollars.
So why are certain parts of the scientific and political world still pushing for hundreds of millions to fund research that has been a dead end and promises to be that way for a while (especially when there is useful research being done without the embryos)?
That’s a good question, and I’m not sure I have a satisfactory answer. And I am honestly looking for one. It is outright intellectual dishonesty? Group-think? Political power-plays in the halls of hallowed science?
But the best reasons are highlighted in Matt Bowman’s opinion in USA Today, “Pointless Research.” He notes that since to congressional ruling in 1995,
science itself has ended the debate. Adult stem cells actually help people, and a new technique creating "induced pluripotent stem cells" (IPSCs) gives every benefit of embryonic cells and more, without destroying embryos. Stem cell pioneer James Thomson told The New York Times that IPSCs spell the "end" of the embryonic stem cell field. Meanwhile, embryonic-destructive research has yielded little beyond tumors, wild promises and the demand for more taxpayer dollars.
So why are certain parts of the scientific and political world still pushing for hundreds of millions to fund research that has been a dead end and promises to be that way for a while (especially when there is useful research being done without the embryos)?
That’s a good question, and I’m not sure I have a satisfactory answer. And I am honestly looking for one. It is outright intellectual dishonesty? Group-think? Political power-plays in the halls of hallowed science?
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Thoughts
In order to be relevant, churches have laid down the scalpel and sutures of theology and picked up the water weenies and squirt guns of practicality.
Tuesday, August 24, 2010
Mental Character
I must admit I am not David Brooks’ biggest fan, but a friend sent me a link to this op-ed piece of his, “A Case of Mental Courage.” I had commented on facebook that when a culture is no longer able to think clearly, it becomes a slave to the tyranny of inanity. In response, he mentioned Brooks’ article.
I really do think Brooks is right when comparing the culture 200 years ago with ours:
In the mental sphere, this meant conquering mental laziness with arduous and sometimes numbingly boring lessons. It meant conquering frivolity by sitting through earnest sermons and speeches. It meant conquering self- approval by staring straight at what was painful.
This emphasis on mental character lasted for a time, but it has abated. There’s less talk of sin and frailty these days.
In this atmosphere, we’re all less conscious of our severe mental shortcomings and less inclined to be skeptical of our own opinions.
He goes on to make a few allusions to how this works out in the political sphere. And may I add that the vast majority of political speech is riddled with horrific thinking: it may be persuasive or expedient or pragmatic or emotive, but it is by-in-large not thoughtful.
Mental character, as Brooks puts it, is a virtue we sorely miss and one we will pay the price for losing over time. Without it, we are left to the whims of the best admen or the most attractive public face or the loudest megaphone. With it, no amount of grandstanding will unduly move us and no amount of pressure and persecution will take our lives off the truth.
I really do think Brooks is right when comparing the culture 200 years ago with ours:
In the mental sphere, this meant conquering mental laziness with arduous and sometimes numbingly boring lessons. It meant conquering frivolity by sitting through earnest sermons and speeches. It meant conquering self- approval by staring straight at what was painful.
This emphasis on mental character lasted for a time, but it has abated. There’s less talk of sin and frailty these days.
In this atmosphere, we’re all less conscious of our severe mental shortcomings and less inclined to be skeptical of our own opinions.
He goes on to make a few allusions to how this works out in the political sphere. And may I add that the vast majority of political speech is riddled with horrific thinking: it may be persuasive or expedient or pragmatic or emotive, but it is by-in-large not thoughtful.
Mental character, as Brooks puts it, is a virtue we sorely miss and one we will pay the price for losing over time. Without it, we are left to the whims of the best admen or the most attractive public face or the loudest megaphone. With it, no amount of grandstanding will unduly move us and no amount of pressure and persecution will take our lives off the truth.
Monday, August 09, 2010
The Smiting Scripture Gaffe
Each week in service we read a passage of Scripture together as a congregation during our worship. It is often a wonderful moment, reminding us of some goodness of God or of living as his people. This week was especially exciting, so I thought I would share.
As one of our songs ended, we had prepared a space for the reading and the first slide came up:
Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked,
from that noisy crowd of evildoers.
They sharpen their tongues like swords
and aim their words like deadly arrows.
They shoot from ambush at the innocent man;
they shoot at him suddenly, without fear.
The Scripture reference read, “Psalm 63:2-4.” The text, however, came from Psalm 64.
I had two thoughts simultaneously: This has to be the wrong passage, and, I hope there isn’t any more to this. By then the slide changed to reveal the rest of the passage.
They encourage each other in evil plans,
they talk about hiding their snares;
they say, "Who will see them?"
They plot injustice and say,
"We have devised a perfect plan!"
Surely the mind and heart of man are cunning.
But God will shoot them with arrows;
suddenly they will be struck down.
He will turn their own tongues against them
and bring them to ruin;
all who see them will shake their heads in scorn.
Long one, isn't it? Try reading it outloud...in front of the congregation...slowly.
One of our worship leaders dutifully read through the end of the passage. The others stopped talking to keep themselves from laughing openly. The next song was a slower, thoughtful song, and it was at least a verse before one of the singers was able to join in.
And who, might you wonder, was at the root of our “Smiting Scripture Gaffe”? The youth pastor. Surprised?
As one of our songs ended, we had prepared a space for the reading and the first slide came up:
Hide me from the conspiracy of the wicked,
from that noisy crowd of evildoers.
They sharpen their tongues like swords
and aim their words like deadly arrows.
They shoot from ambush at the innocent man;
they shoot at him suddenly, without fear.
The Scripture reference read, “Psalm 63:2-4.” The text, however, came from Psalm 64.
I had two thoughts simultaneously: This has to be the wrong passage, and, I hope there isn’t any more to this. By then the slide changed to reveal the rest of the passage.
They encourage each other in evil plans,
they talk about hiding their snares;
they say, "Who will see them?"
They plot injustice and say,
"We have devised a perfect plan!"
Surely the mind and heart of man are cunning.
But God will shoot them with arrows;
suddenly they will be struck down.
He will turn their own tongues against them
and bring them to ruin;
all who see them will shake their heads in scorn.
Long one, isn't it? Try reading it outloud...in front of the congregation...slowly.
One of our worship leaders dutifully read through the end of the passage. The others stopped talking to keep themselves from laughing openly. The next song was a slower, thoughtful song, and it was at least a verse before one of the singers was able to join in.
And who, might you wonder, was at the root of our “Smiting Scripture Gaffe”? The youth pastor. Surprised?
Saturday, August 07, 2010
We Make The Idols, The Idols Make Us
In her provocatively titled article, “What is Reality TV Doing To Us?” the prolific and thoughtful Christine Rosen thinks a little bit about the degradation of human relationships as evidenced in the popularity of reality TV shows – the flotsam and jetsam of the TV world (which isn’t saying much to begin with!). She notes:
If a culture gets the celebrities it deserves, what does it say about ours that we are so embedded in the ersatz lives of housewives, wife-swappers, and the prodigiously fertile?
While her reflections are primarily sociological, my concerns are primarily moral. These TV shows are the kinds of cultural artifacts that are both a reflection of and partial cause of our morally illiterate culture. According to cultural theories that begin with the need for individual and social virtues, it is important to have moral exemplars among us – moral heroes if you will. So while there will be plenty of human refuse around us, that may not make up the majority of our social influence. There will people among us who exemplify moral courage, integrity and honesty, wisdom and moderation.
Few to none of the “stars” (either reality or otherwise) are what we would call moral heroes. Can we even describe moral heroes any more, much less recognize them in our public lives? Instead, they cater to the lowest common denominators among us encouraging the basest forms of self-indulgence, hedonism, and arrogance. We begin to learn that self-indulgence is a kind of personal good while we watch people who are either already unusually wealthy or who are on TV becoming wealthy receive the attention and adoration of the media culture. The hedonism in these shows is so transparent and unquestioned that we are becoming inured to its presence. Where we might have blinked at simply PDA a while ago, it now takes the growing commonality of homosexual PDA to grab our attention. And then we learn to be arrogant when we have nothing to boast about. Nothing but our self-absorbed individuality is needed to be proud of ourselves. The more pathetic we become, the prouder we become of it.
And because the media culture saturates our lives, they form our only really influential idols. For those who are saturated with TV and entertainment news, they may have no other significant sources of lifestyle-modeling. How is it a relatively healthy family can raise kids that look and sound like the trash on TV? Because the influence of the one doesn’t hold a candle to the influence of the other.
And as Christians we can note that the influence of the weekly service and “daily devotional” lifestyle will not even come close to breaking the lifestyle influences of reality TV. More and more Christians are better qualified to answer the question, “What would Simon Cowell say?” than “What would Jesus do?” And if that is true, then what are we as the Body of Christ becoming to this world?
If a culture gets the celebrities it deserves, what does it say about ours that we are so embedded in the ersatz lives of housewives, wife-swappers, and the prodigiously fertile?
While her reflections are primarily sociological, my concerns are primarily moral. These TV shows are the kinds of cultural artifacts that are both a reflection of and partial cause of our morally illiterate culture. According to cultural theories that begin with the need for individual and social virtues, it is important to have moral exemplars among us – moral heroes if you will. So while there will be plenty of human refuse around us, that may not make up the majority of our social influence. There will people among us who exemplify moral courage, integrity and honesty, wisdom and moderation.
Few to none of the “stars” (either reality or otherwise) are what we would call moral heroes. Can we even describe moral heroes any more, much less recognize them in our public lives? Instead, they cater to the lowest common denominators among us encouraging the basest forms of self-indulgence, hedonism, and arrogance. We begin to learn that self-indulgence is a kind of personal good while we watch people who are either already unusually wealthy or who are on TV becoming wealthy receive the attention and adoration of the media culture. The hedonism in these shows is so transparent and unquestioned that we are becoming inured to its presence. Where we might have blinked at simply PDA a while ago, it now takes the growing commonality of homosexual PDA to grab our attention. And then we learn to be arrogant when we have nothing to boast about. Nothing but our self-absorbed individuality is needed to be proud of ourselves. The more pathetic we become, the prouder we become of it.
And because the media culture saturates our lives, they form our only really influential idols. For those who are saturated with TV and entertainment news, they may have no other significant sources of lifestyle-modeling. How is it a relatively healthy family can raise kids that look and sound like the trash on TV? Because the influence of the one doesn’t hold a candle to the influence of the other.
And as Christians we can note that the influence of the weekly service and “daily devotional” lifestyle will not even come close to breaking the lifestyle influences of reality TV. More and more Christians are better qualified to answer the question, “What would Simon Cowell say?” than “What would Jesus do?” And if that is true, then what are we as the Body of Christ becoming to this world?
Friday, August 06, 2010
Christian Belief and the Simple Skeptic
This blog post at STR on Christianity and skepticism resonates well with a lot of the back-and-forth I have seen over the evidence for Christianity. Often the skeptic is adept at a handful of specialized arguments that cast doubt on belief, but then may struggle to provide positive evidence for a belief they want to espouse.
The excerpts below apply to the “simply doubting skeptic” and not to a more robust project of positive evidence for a non-theistic position, but they are provocative nonetheless. The simple skeptic shakes Christians far more than he or she ought.
Critics of Christianity - or any other number of issues - sometimes think that skepticism is the default position toward our claims. Always posing questions and doubt, but never offering support for these. They think skepticism is a safe default position despite an argument offered them.
Many critics of Christianity pose counterarguments and rebuttals of our claims. But some merely pose questions to sow seeds of doubt and think they've done enough to dismiss Christianity. Doubts and questions do not constitute counter-evidence.
And again…
This is a simple matter of epistemology and reason, not unique to Christianity. Any position supported by evidence and arguments should be met by critics with reasons and arguments of their own. If they only respond with skepticism, they've done nothing at all to to negate any of the justification for the other view. At this point, one view has evidence to support it, and the other - and skepticism is a position about a view - has none. The position that has been justified has the rational advantage. The one that hasn't, doesn't.
The excerpts below apply to the “simply doubting skeptic” and not to a more robust project of positive evidence for a non-theistic position, but they are provocative nonetheless. The simple skeptic shakes Christians far more than he or she ought.
Critics of Christianity - or any other number of issues - sometimes think that skepticism is the default position toward our claims. Always posing questions and doubt, but never offering support for these. They think skepticism is a safe default position despite an argument offered them.
Many critics of Christianity pose counterarguments and rebuttals of our claims. But some merely pose questions to sow seeds of doubt and think they've done enough to dismiss Christianity. Doubts and questions do not constitute counter-evidence.
And again…
This is a simple matter of epistemology and reason, not unique to Christianity. Any position supported by evidence and arguments should be met by critics with reasons and arguments of their own. If they only respond with skepticism, they've done nothing at all to to negate any of the justification for the other view. At this point, one view has evidence to support it, and the other - and skepticism is a position about a view - has none. The position that has been justified has the rational advantage. The one that hasn't, doesn't.
Monday, August 02, 2010
Another Outbreak of Adult Stem Cells
I have argued in this blog for a while now that when it comes to the debate surrounding embryonic stem cell research and adult stem cell research, the adult cells have the embryonic cells beat on every count. Then comes this headline published several places, but here in the LA Times, “Adult Stem Cell Studies Ahead of Embryonic Research.” The article goes on to mention (and link to) a few of the many clinical successes already known as a result of ASC treatments. As for ESC research it continues to show “promise” and is being worked on in certain spinal cord applications. The long and the short of it (for now), is that ASC research is a success and ESC research is still a promise.
The next consideration is that ESC research destroys embryos – they cannot survive the process of having the stem cells removed. So, depending on your view of the personhood of the embryo, ESC research is tantamount to a form of abortion. Hence, it seems that ASC research has both the scientific and ethical edge.
Another consideration is that ESCs have a potentially wider range of application than ASCs. They might be able to do more for more people, so the research (necessarily including the creation and destruction of embryos) is justified based on the potential good it can do. If we find a way for one embryo to be used in the treatment of, say, 100 patients with 100 different conditions, is it worth the destruction of possibly tens of thousands of embryos in the process?
I don’t agree with that kind of fairly crass utilitarian thinking, and am inclined to be on the side of ASC research that harms none, actually accomplishes real-world treatments, and continues to develop as a multipotent form of medical treatment.
The next consideration is that ESC research destroys embryos – they cannot survive the process of having the stem cells removed. So, depending on your view of the personhood of the embryo, ESC research is tantamount to a form of abortion. Hence, it seems that ASC research has both the scientific and ethical edge.
Another consideration is that ESCs have a potentially wider range of application than ASCs. They might be able to do more for more people, so the research (necessarily including the creation and destruction of embryos) is justified based on the potential good it can do. If we find a way for one embryo to be used in the treatment of, say, 100 patients with 100 different conditions, is it worth the destruction of possibly tens of thousands of embryos in the process?
I don’t agree with that kind of fairly crass utilitarian thinking, and am inclined to be on the side of ASC research that harms none, actually accomplishes real-world treatments, and continues to develop as a multipotent form of medical treatment.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Pastors Preaching
For our denomination’s area meeting this Spring (what we call District Council), I was asked to give a workshop session on combining an expositional preaching style with what you might call week-to-week applicability/relevance/practicality, etc. The basic issue I was asked to address is the reason why so many evangelical churches have moved away from sermons that begin and end with a biblical text – the fear of irrelevance. The talk I gave, The Dogma is the Drama, emphasized the need to begin with a commitment to Scripture and keep in mind what you might call the prophetic element; the present-day realities and needs of the congregation.
I was asked a question at the end about how a pastor can go about building this kind of point of view and effectiveness from week to week. I gave an off-the-cuff answer that was pretty thin (sorry, Bob!). But after a little more reflection, I might have a better answer. So how does a pastor go about getting to know both Scripture and the culture well enough to build a pulpit ministry that is faithful to Scripture first and foremost, and yet speaks wisely into current issues and cultural settings?
Literacy
First of all, there is no substitute for biblical literacy, and because it should go without saying, I won’t spend any more time on it. But what does need to be said is that pastors need to deepen what else they read. We are in the business of handling the mystery of the gospel of Christ, and thus we should be in the regular habit of reading thoughtful and intelligent books. We ought to put down Olsteen and pick up the Stotts. We should read a little less off the “Christian Inspiration” shelf and a little more off the “Theology” shelf. Most of what passes for Christian best-sellers are pretty thin on substance, and if that becomes our primary mental diet, we ought not be surprised if our sermons follow form.
I have another pastor friend who always has at least four books going in four areas: theology, philosophy, science, and Bible. While that might be a heavy load for some, it is an example of where we ought to be headed. What was the last good book on theology you read that stretched you? Have you ever read anything by a Christian philosopher?
I would like to add to the list of potential books works by dead people. There is a perspective that comes from faithful Christians in different contexts that becomes invaluable to us over time. A thoughtful pastor ought to read Baxter’s Reformed Pastor – it is worth 100 current books on pastoral leadership. The journey of discovery, confession and conversion in Augustine’s Confessions is priceless.
Cultural Literacy
My original answer in the workshop was along these lines: I read a lot of things that frustrate me. Reading up on what the secular culture thinks about spiritual things can be very enlightening. At the very least, it helps to get us out of our comfort zones and puts us in contact with people who think and believe very differently than we do.
Francis Schaeffer is probably our modern North-star when it comes to this. He read, understood and could communicate with the disciples of Nietzsche. Can I read, understand and communicate with the modern disciples of Hitchens, Singer, and the like? If not, I might be unnecessarily limiting my spheres of influence.
The Weekly Conviction that Scripture Speaks
All this folds into how we approach Scripture. Do I need to “make” it relevant? Do I have to pull in some outside source to help the dry text communicate well? Do I need to buy illustrations off the internet about perseverance?
The Scriptural text is like the oven that bakes all the influences together into a tasty treat. All the flotsam and jetsam is consumed in the heat, and the various ingredients are subsumed by the larger purpose of the text itself.
I was asked a question at the end about how a pastor can go about building this kind of point of view and effectiveness from week to week. I gave an off-the-cuff answer that was pretty thin (sorry, Bob!). But after a little more reflection, I might have a better answer. So how does a pastor go about getting to know both Scripture and the culture well enough to build a pulpit ministry that is faithful to Scripture first and foremost, and yet speaks wisely into current issues and cultural settings?
Literacy
First of all, there is no substitute for biblical literacy, and because it should go without saying, I won’t spend any more time on it. But what does need to be said is that pastors need to deepen what else they read. We are in the business of handling the mystery of the gospel of Christ, and thus we should be in the regular habit of reading thoughtful and intelligent books. We ought to put down Olsteen and pick up the Stotts. We should read a little less off the “Christian Inspiration” shelf and a little more off the “Theology” shelf. Most of what passes for Christian best-sellers are pretty thin on substance, and if that becomes our primary mental diet, we ought not be surprised if our sermons follow form.
I have another pastor friend who always has at least four books going in four areas: theology, philosophy, science, and Bible. While that might be a heavy load for some, it is an example of where we ought to be headed. What was the last good book on theology you read that stretched you? Have you ever read anything by a Christian philosopher?
I would like to add to the list of potential books works by dead people. There is a perspective that comes from faithful Christians in different contexts that becomes invaluable to us over time. A thoughtful pastor ought to read Baxter’s Reformed Pastor – it is worth 100 current books on pastoral leadership. The journey of discovery, confession and conversion in Augustine’s Confessions is priceless.
Cultural Literacy
My original answer in the workshop was along these lines: I read a lot of things that frustrate me. Reading up on what the secular culture thinks about spiritual things can be very enlightening. At the very least, it helps to get us out of our comfort zones and puts us in contact with people who think and believe very differently than we do.
Francis Schaeffer is probably our modern North-star when it comes to this. He read, understood and could communicate with the disciples of Nietzsche. Can I read, understand and communicate with the modern disciples of Hitchens, Singer, and the like? If not, I might be unnecessarily limiting my spheres of influence.
The Weekly Conviction that Scripture Speaks
All this folds into how we approach Scripture. Do I need to “make” it relevant? Do I have to pull in some outside source to help the dry text communicate well? Do I need to buy illustrations off the internet about perseverance?
The Scriptural text is like the oven that bakes all the influences together into a tasty treat. All the flotsam and jetsam is consumed in the heat, and the various ingredients are subsumed by the larger purpose of the text itself.
Friday, July 09, 2010
Chickens are like Peanuts...
This story is absolutely brilliant. From the online version of the Wall Street Journal, the first couple of paragraphs speak for themselves:
Hobbies often hatch small-business ideas. Chickens are no exception.
Ruth Haldeman began adopting pet chickens in 2002. "I wanted fresh eggs, but I found that chickens are like peanuts, you can't have just one," she says. Before long, Ms. Haldeman had founded ChickenDiapers.com in Hot Springs, Ark.
"Everyone was talking about how there was a need for diapers," she says, given that chickens typically can't be potty trained. "Oh, lord, what a mess they make."
I think this is brilliant, well, because it is about diapers you put on chickens. Secondly it is a great example of what individual entrepreneurs can do if they see a need (or a messy niche) and have the economic freedom to take the initiave and fill it. You may not need very many chicken diapers, and I find them hilarious, but you have to admit a command and control economy would never have room for un-housetrained chicken potty accessories.
Hobbies often hatch small-business ideas. Chickens are no exception.
Ruth Haldeman began adopting pet chickens in 2002. "I wanted fresh eggs, but I found that chickens are like peanuts, you can't have just one," she says. Before long, Ms. Haldeman had founded ChickenDiapers.com in Hot Springs, Ark.
"Everyone was talking about how there was a need for diapers," she says, given that chickens typically can't be potty trained. "Oh, lord, what a mess they make."
I think this is brilliant, well, because it is about diapers you put on chickens. Secondly it is a great example of what individual entrepreneurs can do if they see a need (or a messy niche) and have the economic freedom to take the initiave and fill it. You may not need very many chicken diapers, and I find them hilarious, but you have to admit a command and control economy would never have room for un-housetrained chicken potty accessories.
Wednesday, July 07, 2010
The Vocation of Pastor
Eugene Peterson is a deeply important theologian for the evangelical world today primarily because he has wrestled against cultural stereotypes of ministry and pastoral work for decades. This makes some of what he writes esoteric, but more often than not it is simply prophetic. My calling to be a pastor was saved by one of his less known books, Under the Unpredictable Plant. In this Out of Ur post, Brandon O’Brien uses one of his more recent works to discuss the difference between jobs and callings, careers and vocations.
Definitions are in order. According to Peterson, a job is “an assignment to do work that can be quantified and evaluated.” Most jobs come with job descriptions, so it “is pretty easy to decide whether a job has been completed or not…whether a job is done well or badly.” This, Peterson argues, is the primary way Americans think of the pastor (and, presumably, that pastors think of themselves). Ministry is “a job that I get paid for, a job that is assigned to me by a denomination, a job that I am expected to do to the satisfaction of my congregation.”
Jobs are quantifiable. We may be better or worse at them qualitatively, but they are primarily about quantifying the outcomes of job descriptions. Vocations are entirely different. They are what we are called to do, and they are rarely quantifiable in neat and tidy ways. The calling of the pastor is very much this way. Is a pastor’s vocation about numbers on Sunday mornings? If so, I can tell of the personal anxiety and havoc they inflict. Is a pastor’s vocation measurable by budgets? If so, what makes him any different from a corporate middle manager?
Instead, the pastor’s calling is about things like souls, spiritual formation, Gospel communication, reconciliation, truth, and so forth. Try keeping track of that in Excel. The result is a conflict of pressures: the standard cultural model wants to put quantifiable categories on “pastor,” but the call and the actual week-to-week work resist at every turn. So, to which do we acquiesce?
According to O’Brien, Peterson notes:
And the struggle for pastors today, he continues, is to “keep the immediacy and authority of God’s call in my ears when an entire culture, both secular and ecclesial, is giving me a job description.”
What do we expect of our pastors from week to week?
Definitions are in order. According to Peterson, a job is “an assignment to do work that can be quantified and evaluated.” Most jobs come with job descriptions, so it “is pretty easy to decide whether a job has been completed or not…whether a job is done well or badly.” This, Peterson argues, is the primary way Americans think of the pastor (and, presumably, that pastors think of themselves). Ministry is “a job that I get paid for, a job that is assigned to me by a denomination, a job that I am expected to do to the satisfaction of my congregation.”
Jobs are quantifiable. We may be better or worse at them qualitatively, but they are primarily about quantifying the outcomes of job descriptions. Vocations are entirely different. They are what we are called to do, and they are rarely quantifiable in neat and tidy ways. The calling of the pastor is very much this way. Is a pastor’s vocation about numbers on Sunday mornings? If so, I can tell of the personal anxiety and havoc they inflict. Is a pastor’s vocation measurable by budgets? If so, what makes him any different from a corporate middle manager?
Instead, the pastor’s calling is about things like souls, spiritual formation, Gospel communication, reconciliation, truth, and so forth. Try keeping track of that in Excel. The result is a conflict of pressures: the standard cultural model wants to put quantifiable categories on “pastor,” but the call and the actual week-to-week work resist at every turn. So, to which do we acquiesce?
According to O’Brien, Peterson notes:
And the struggle for pastors today, he continues, is to “keep the immediacy and authority of God’s call in my ears when an entire culture, both secular and ecclesial, is giving me a job description.”
What do we expect of our pastors from week to week?
Thursday, July 01, 2010
Peter Singer and the Cleanest Apocalypse
Peter Singer is a rather infamous ethicist at Princeton and a public thinker who is often published in the pages of influential papers and popular journals. This gives Singer’s ideas a relatively powerful public platform, which is a little unfortunate. Most of what he argues for ends up being quite extreme in its dislike of the human species, and certainly at odds with a Christian worldview. Recently, he wrote a short opinion piece for the New York Times titled, “Should This Be The Last Generation?”
His basic question is this:
How good does life have to be, to make it reasonable to bring a child into the world? Is the standard of life experienced by most people in developed nations today good enough to make this decision unproblematic, in the absence of specific knowledge that the child will have a severe genetic disease or other problem?
Singer argues that it is certainly true that the birth of each child brings more suffering into the world, and that the birth of any child is neutral in its benefits/drawbacks at best. In other words, it is arguable that the birth of every child is a detriment to both the future of the human species and the planet. The reader should be aware that Singer is the current flag-bearer for utilitarianism, the ethical view that all meaningful notions of good and bad are wrapped up in the consequences of a thing or action. So, given this, it might be reasonable to argue that the totality of the goodness of the birth of a child may be measured by their carbon footprints. And, since they will inevitably add to the overall pollution of the planet, bringing them into existence is an overall moral negative. Hence, “If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required — we could party our way into extinction!”
To return to the original question of the piece, whether the expected quality of life is good enough to bring a child into existence, it strikes me as deeply ironic that the answer for most potential children in all the developing world is likely, “no.” If we were to implement Singer’s argument, it would result in eugenics on a scale the world has never seen against the poorest of the poor, the darkest skinned among us, and every economic and ethnic minority you can think of. Surely Singer (and others) doesn’t really want to argue for that. Singer cites another philosopher who has written in depth about this.
...South African philosopher David Benatar, author of a fine book with an arresting title: “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence.” One of Benatar’s arguments trades on something like the asymmetry noted earlier. To bring into existence someone who will suffer is, Benatar argues, to harm that person, but to bring into existence someone who will have a good life is not to benefit him or her. Few of us would think it right to inflict severe suffering on an innocent child, even if that were the only way in which we could bring many other children into the world. Yet everyone will suffer to some extent, and if our species continues to reproduce, we can be sure that some future children will suffer severely. Hence continued reproduction will harm some children severely, and benefit none.
The argument is simple; the assumptions are convoluted and debatable at best. Is the environment more important than having children? That might be a false dichotomy, but Benatar assumes yes. Is the human species the most significant (possibly negative) factor on the environment? With apologies to Al Gore and the NY cocktail circuit, anthropogenic global warming is far from a settled science. Is the value of a potential child captured by either their assumed “quality of life” or impact on the environment? Absolutely not.
And finally, with a kind of “wave of the hand” and after providing some tentative arguments for stopping childbearing altogether, Singer says that’s not really what he thinks. “I do think it would be wrong to choose the non-sentient universe. In my judgment, for most people, life is worth living.”
I know it is a short article intended to provoke, but I am not sure Singer’s form of utilitarianism or general worldview can supply as robust an argument for continuing the species as it can for ending it.
His basic question is this:
How good does life have to be, to make it reasonable to bring a child into the world? Is the standard of life experienced by most people in developed nations today good enough to make this decision unproblematic, in the absence of specific knowledge that the child will have a severe genetic disease or other problem?
Singer argues that it is certainly true that the birth of each child brings more suffering into the world, and that the birth of any child is neutral in its benefits/drawbacks at best. In other words, it is arguable that the birth of every child is a detriment to both the future of the human species and the planet. The reader should be aware that Singer is the current flag-bearer for utilitarianism, the ethical view that all meaningful notions of good and bad are wrapped up in the consequences of a thing or action. So, given this, it might be reasonable to argue that the totality of the goodness of the birth of a child may be measured by their carbon footprints. And, since they will inevitably add to the overall pollution of the planet, bringing them into existence is an overall moral negative. Hence, “If we would all agree to have ourselves sterilized then no sacrifices would be required — we could party our way into extinction!”
To return to the original question of the piece, whether the expected quality of life is good enough to bring a child into existence, it strikes me as deeply ironic that the answer for most potential children in all the developing world is likely, “no.” If we were to implement Singer’s argument, it would result in eugenics on a scale the world has never seen against the poorest of the poor, the darkest skinned among us, and every economic and ethnic minority you can think of. Surely Singer (and others) doesn’t really want to argue for that. Singer cites another philosopher who has written in depth about this.
...South African philosopher David Benatar, author of a fine book with an arresting title: “Better Never to Have Been: The Harm of Coming into Existence.” One of Benatar’s arguments trades on something like the asymmetry noted earlier. To bring into existence someone who will suffer is, Benatar argues, to harm that person, but to bring into existence someone who will have a good life is not to benefit him or her. Few of us would think it right to inflict severe suffering on an innocent child, even if that were the only way in which we could bring many other children into the world. Yet everyone will suffer to some extent, and if our species continues to reproduce, we can be sure that some future children will suffer severely. Hence continued reproduction will harm some children severely, and benefit none.
The argument is simple; the assumptions are convoluted and debatable at best. Is the environment more important than having children? That might be a false dichotomy, but Benatar assumes yes. Is the human species the most significant (possibly negative) factor on the environment? With apologies to Al Gore and the NY cocktail circuit, anthropogenic global warming is far from a settled science. Is the value of a potential child captured by either their assumed “quality of life” or impact on the environment? Absolutely not.
And finally, with a kind of “wave of the hand” and after providing some tentative arguments for stopping childbearing altogether, Singer says that’s not really what he thinks. “I do think it would be wrong to choose the non-sentient universe. In my judgment, for most people, life is worth living.”
I know it is a short article intended to provoke, but I am not sure Singer’s form of utilitarianism or general worldview can supply as robust an argument for continuing the species as it can for ending it.
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