Whew – this is big. I am beginning a new full time position tomorrow with an incredible organization, the Scripps National Spelling Bee. While I am (with many tears) ending my term as Associate Director for the Emerging Scholars Network, InterVarsity has asked me to continue blogging for the Emerging Scholars Blog. I’ve written a very nice letter about my change, so you can read the whole thing right here.
I saw this quote from famed magician/atheist/television personality Penn Jillette‘s new book on kottke.org:
There is no god and that’s the simple truth. If every trace of any single religion died out and nothing were passed on, it would never be created exactly that way again. There might be some other nonsense in its place, but not that exact nonsense. If all of science were wiped out, it would still be true and someone would find a way to figure it all out again.
Now, this might be true or it might not be true – it’s a thought experiment with no way of verification. It’s an assertion, not an argument. Thus, from the very beginning, the appeal to empiricism is weakened.
But this claim – “it would never be created exactly that way again” – is true of anything rooted in the passage of time: history, art, literature, even the progress of science itself. Continue reading
This morning, I discovered that a rather inappropriate Facebook Page had “Liked” the Emerging Scholars Network Facebook Page and was starting to “Like” posts. I figure it was only a matter of time before they started making comments or adding Wall comments to draw attention to themselves. I was able to ban them permanently from our Page, but it wasn’t an obvious process, so I thought it might be helpful to others to post instructions. Step-by-step instruction (with pictures!) follow below. Continue reading
Yesterday, the driver next to me at a light honked his horn, then held up a sign telling me about a problem with my minivan that I need to get fixed ASAP. (“Expired car tags,” if you’re wondering.)
My two immediate thoughts:
Natural gifts such as persona charisma, mental brightness, emotional strength, and organizational ability can impress and motivate people for a long time. Sometimes they can be mistaken for spiritual vitality and depth. Sadly, we do not have a Christian culture today that easily discriminates between a personal of spiritual depth and a person of raw talent. Like the wheat and the tares of Jesus’ parable, they can be difficult to distinguish. The result is that more than a few people can be fooled into thinking they are being influenced by a spiritual giant when in fact they are being manipulated by a dwarf.
Gordon MacDonald, Ordering Your Private World, p. 5, emphasis added.
I find these words frightening because I think they are true.
This quote expresses some of my recent thinking to an eery extent:
So if we find ethical, theological, and historical diversity in Scripture, we begin with the assumption that what the Bible intends for us to learn is not primarily concerned with textual unity or precise moral consistency as construed by modern ethicists, theologians, and historians. Rather, “The unity of the Bible is more subtle but at the same time deeper. It is a unity that should ultimately be sought in Christ himself, the living Word…”
Mark Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, p. 139, quoting Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament.
Of course, this leads to several important questions: How much theological or historical disharmony can be tolerated? How much unity should we require for fellowship or organizational structures? What do we do with ethics or theologies that oppose each other? Nonetheless, I think Noll and Enns are on to something important here.
I have very mixed feelings about this beautiful photo gallery by Shelby Lee Adams in today’s NY Times Sunday Review. The photos, without question, show true aspects of Kentucky life: Appalachian Gothic, shirtless men and boys, hunting trophies, haphazard piles of junk, families who seem at once welcoming and off-putting. Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner come to mind, even though they were writers of the Deep South, which should never be confused with the Upland South. The photos are both beautiful and disturbing.
However, since this photo gallery appears in the New York Times, will the primary audience see anything besides rednecks and hillbillies? Won’t this gallery simply reinforce existing stereotypes of Kentucky among the East Coast elites? Will they have any insight at all as to how to interpret this quote from Adams that accompanies the gallery?
When I was young, I couldn’t wait to leave Kentucky. Now, as I get older, I value every day when I return.
Many people know about Kentucky author and farmer Wendell Berry, but I wish more people knew about Harlan Hubbard, classically trained painter and musician, an essayist who inspired Berry and who, like Berry, chose to live off the land in rural Kentucky rather than among the cultural elite. Hubbard is someone who gets you a bit closer to the paradoxical land that is Kentucky.
I am not Anglican, but Elizabeth and I greatly value our time as visitors at St. John’s (Shaughnessy) Anglican Church while living in Vancouver. The most recent Regent College Anglican Studies Program newsletter includes two items from the past and the future of St. John’s (Shaughnessy) that I find interesting. First, a fine remembrance of Harry Robinson, longtime rector at St. John’s, who passed away earlier this year. Though not as well as known as his good friends J. I. Packer and John R. W. Stott, Rev. Robinson left a legacy, of which I have been a beneficiary.
Second, the assistant rector while we attended St. John’s, Felix Orji, is now Bishop Felix Orji in the Anglican Church in North America. What wonderful news – congratulations, Felix!
Since the atonement involves tremendous complexity and great mystery, the best narratives will not be simplistic (like movies were resolution comes through a car chase or gunfight). Neither will the best narratives be Manichean (where the good guys are all good and the bad guys are all bad). Nor will they be simply heroic (where protagonists triumph over obstacles through reliance on their own inner resources) or simply nihilistic (where the point is to enact the futility of human existence as in novels of Thomas Hardy like Jude the Obscure and Tess of the D’Urbervilles). Rather, the best narratives will be morally complex, as in fact the enduring tragedies, comedies, and novels — like Oedipus Rex, King Lear, Paradise Lost, and Crime and Punishment — regularly are. Such morally complex narratives are most satisfying because, in terms of atonement theology, they are most true to life.
Mark Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, p. 71. Emphasis added.
If, then, the act of substitution is a primordial human reality, the seriousness of sin is the essential human dilemma, the divine initiative in salvation is the basis for human hope, the narrative movement of grace is the primary shape for human knowledge, and the complex nature of reality is the inescapable challenge for human understanding — then the human study of the world should reflect these realities.
Mark Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, pp. 70-71, emphasis added.
By “complex nature of reality,” Noll refers to the multiplicity of the atonement. Who put Jesus on the cross? Judas? Pilate? The priests? God? Jesus himself? Yes — they all did. Does God love sinners or punish them? He does both. Was the cross the worst moment in human history or the best? It was both at the same time.