Monday, February 21, 2005
Podcasting...all the rage
There must have been some type of editorial vibration in the air around Podcasting. First I read an article in the NYT, Tired of TiVo? Beyond Blogs? Podcasts Are Here, which happens to list several Christian oriented podcasts along with a sidebar on how to get started. Then I came across this article on Podcasting in Michigan. iPods offer radio with no rules - 02/20/05.
Saturday, February 19, 2005
Are We an Emergent Church
I tend to use Donnel’s blog as a launch pad for a variety of blogs I read (I guess I’m too lazy to update my list), so when I saw a new listing, ServantBlog, I checked it out. Andy and Kate White seem like great people, and I’ll continue to read their blog, but more to the point, they listed Brian McLaren’s blog, which launched me into several hours of reading about the emergent church movement.
I first heard of Brian McLaren last summer when I read his book The Story We Find Ourselves In: Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian. It was a very enjoyable read. While it challenged many of my “modern” evangelical presuppositions, it also spoke to a long smoldering ember in my heart to live my life as a Christian in a more dynamic holistic way. I should also point out that it blended well with all that has been happening at the Vineyard, which now leads me to wonder to what extent the A2 Vineyard could be classified as part of the “emergent church” movement…at least unofficially.
Here are some excerpts from a November 2004 Christianity Today article, The Emergent Mystique, on the Emergent Church movement, including a summary of McLaren’s first book. My comments are italicized and [bracketed]:
"'This is not just the same old message with new methods,' Rob [Bell, pastor of a 10,000 member “emergent church” in Grand Rapids] says. 'We're rediscovering Christianity as an Eastern religion, as a way of life. Legal metaphors for faith don't deliver a way of life. We grew up in churches where people knew the nine verses why we don't speak in tongues, but had never experienced the overwhelming presence of God.'
In fact, as the Bells describe it, after launching Mars Hill in 1999, they found themselves increasingly uncomfortable with church. 'Life in the church had become so small,' Kristen says. 'It had worked for me for a long time. Then it stopped working.' The Bells started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself—'discovering the Bible as a human product,' as Rob puts it, rather than the product of divine fiat. 'The Bible is still in the center for us,' Rob says, 'but it's a different kind of center. We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it.'
'I grew up thinking that we've figured out the Bible,' Kristen says, 'that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again—like life used to be black and white, and now it's in color.'"
The emphasis on the mystery of wonder reminds me of what we learned from Phyllis Tickle last weekend and I can definitely relate to the Bell’s realization that they didn’t really understand the Bible after all.
…….
A New Kind of Christian became influential not just because of its content but also its form. McLaren cast the book as a story of two friends, a disillusioned evangelical pastor named Dan Poole and an enigmatic high school science teacher nicknamed Neo. On the brink of despair with his own ministry, Dan is led by Neo—who turns out to be a lapsed pastor himself—through a series of set pieces that introduce the initially skeptical Dan to a "postmodern" approach to Christianity.
The modern period of history, as Neo tells it, is coming to an end. We are entering "postmodernity," an as-yet ill-defined borderland in which central modern values like objectivity, analysis, and control will become less compelling. They are superseded by postmodern values like mystery and wonder. The controversial implication is that forms of Christianity that have thrived in modernity—including Dan's evangelicalism—are unlikely to survive the transition.
[which is exactly the kind of discussions we’ve been having in our Questers discussion of NT Wright’s works
…. recently McLaren has started to sketch the outlines of his vision of a postmodern church. He sketches a big circle labeled "self," a smaller circle next to it labeled "church," and a tiny circle off to the side labeled "world."
"This has been evangelicalism's model," he says. "Fundamentally it's about getting yourself 'saved'—in old-style evangelicalism—or improving your life in the new style. Either way, the Christian life is really about you and your needs. Once your needs are met, then we think about how you can serve the church. And then, if there's anything left over, we ask how the church might serve the world."
He starts drawing again. "But what if it went the other way? This big circle is the world—the world God loved so much that he sent his Son. Inside that circle is another one, the church, God's people chosen to demonstrate his love to the world. And inside that is a small circle, which is your self. It's not about the church meeting your needs, it's about you joining the mission of God's people to meet the world's needs."
With his circle diagrams, McLaren is popularizing the work of the late British missionary Lesslie Newbigin, who returned from a lifetime in India to spend his last years reflecting on the need for a new theology of mission. "According to Newbigin, the greatest heresy in monotheism is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of election," McLaren says. "Election is not about who gets to go to heaven; election is about who God chooses to be part of his crisis-response team to bring healing to the world."
[YES!!!]
…….
If critics overlook the evangelistic energy of the emerging church, they also often lump together two very different kinds of postmodern thought. The most notorious postmodern thinkers have been the "deconstructionists"—French intellectuals like Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault who seek to show that the cherished ideals of Western society (and Christian faith) are fatally compromised by internal contradictions.
But another stream, less well-known outside universities and seminaries, has taken dissatisfaction with modernity in a more constructive direction. It is these thinkers—the late philosopher Michael Polanyi and Notre Dame professor Alasdair MacIntyre, along with theologians like Newbigin—who are gaining the attention of the emerging church's more theologically inclined leaders.
From Newbigin, McLaren has drawn the idea of the church as "missional"—oriented toward the needs of the world rather than oriented towards its own preservation. From Polanyi and MacIntyre, he concludes that the emerging church must be "monastic"—centered on training disciples who practice, rather than just believe, the faith.
He cites Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, with their emphasis on spiritual disciplines, as key mentors for the emerging church. None of these thinkers has any inclination to throw out the baby of truth with the bathwater of modernity.
.....[end of CT article excerpts]
If you substitute (or add) NT Wright for Willard and Foster, you get something a lot like Ken’s emphasis on outreach (missional), contemplative prayer (monastic) and re-examining what the bible really means through rediscovering the historical context (from Wright). Maybe we are part of the Emergent “conversation”, as McLaren calls it (since it doesn’t rank as a movement yet in his mind).
If you’re up for more reading, here a triad of interesting and related articles. The first is a critique by Chuck Colson of the postmodern movement. The second is an open letter from Brian McLaren responding to the article and the third is Colson’s response to McLaren. I’ve excerpted them, albeit clumsily, if you don’t have time to read them in toto.
1) The Postmodern Crackup - Christianity Today Magazine: "Is postmodernism—the philosophy that claims there is no transcendent truth—on life support? It may be premature to sign the death certificate, but there are signs postmodernism is losing strength……It would be the supreme irony—and a terrible tragedy—if we found ourselves slipping into postmodernity just when the broader culture has figured out it's a dead end."
2) Brian McLaren: An Open Letter to Chuck Colson….I can agree with you that the “no transcendent truth” kind of postmodernism is dead, because as I said, it never was very alive. At most, it was an early, reactionary phase in a yet-embryonic movement that has much more mature, constructive, and positive voices emerging.…You feel that postmoderns have developed a self-contradictory message (THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH: there are no absolute truths!). This absurdity might allow them to do anything they want in the name of no absolutes (which to you means “no morality”).…. This is a good thing, and I applaud you for it, and I share your concern!….But try to understand this parallel reality: In the late 20th century, postmodern thinkers looked back at regimes like Stalin’s and Hitler’s…Postmodern thinkers realized that these megalomaniacs used grand systems of belief to justify their atrocities. Those systems of belief – which the postmodern thinkers called “metanarratives,” but which also could have been called “world views” or “ideologies” – were so powerful they could transform good European intellectuals into killers or accomplices. They thought back over European history and realized (as C. S. Lewis did) that those who have passionate commitment to a system of belief will be most willing, not only to die for it, but to kill for it…. I’m tempted to point out the irony that some Christians like yourself seem to be more deeply entrenching themselves in “modernity just when the broader culture has figured out it’s a dead end.”
3) Chuck Colson's Response…. Immanuel Kant spent his life thinking about whether truth is knowable and how you can know it. The issue is clear: are the answers to life found by a thinker sitting in a Dutch oven and exclaiming after much reflection, cogito ergo sum, which in some ways led to the rise of a humanist view of the world, unintended though it was? Or is the meaning of life found in Revelation (which I believe is aided by reason)? This is a very fundamental question…..To put it in the most shorthand way, relativism and deconstruction and existentialism have to lead to the loss of any transcendent authority. Whenever a society lacks transcendent authority, it is going to be governed by whoever can obtain power – and there will be no restraints upon that person or party. The process is almost inevitable….If postmodernism succeeds in destroying transcendent authority, the inevitable consequences are anarchy and nihilism. But nihilism is a vacuum and all vacuums must be filled; so without the restraint of a higher law a tyrant can always be depended upon to step in to fill the power vacuum; and people always choose order over liberty…. If you stop looking for truth and you stop debating primary questions, that is, the fundamental issues people deal with in life, then whoever occupies the seat of power makes those decisions for us. The utopians may think this is a good thing. They believe the victors (their choice) will be more enlightened and benign than the white oppressors who wrote history and of course were only expressing their view of life, which they imposed upon culture. The utopian myth, which for generations has been the principal enemy of liberty, is based on false premises as Christians who are aware of the Fall know...Of course, the postmoderns are right in saying that looking over European history, those who have “a passionate commitment to a system of belief will be most willing not only to die for it but to kill for it.” But is it wrong to die for a noble cause—or to kill in a just war, restraining evil? The Greeks recognized courage as one of the four cardinal virtues – courage to defend justice. Where would we be if people did not have a wholehearted commitment to a system of belief like democracy, freedom, and liberty? We’d still be living under monarchs...What this tells me is that people are still asking the same questions the Greeks asked. They’re still looking for ultimate meaning, still looking for first principles. They’re still plagued by the questions that exist within us because the Imago Dei is within us. The problem is that you are not going to find that answer in the art world. I think we really have a much better answer if we have the opportunity to explain this to her. And that, dear brother, is what my column was all about.
I first heard of Brian McLaren last summer when I read his book The Story We Find Ourselves In: Further Adventures of a New Kind of Christian. It was a very enjoyable read. While it challenged many of my “modern” evangelical presuppositions, it also spoke to a long smoldering ember in my heart to live my life as a Christian in a more dynamic holistic way. I should also point out that it blended well with all that has been happening at the Vineyard, which now leads me to wonder to what extent the A2 Vineyard could be classified as part of the “emergent church” movement…at least unofficially.
Here are some excerpts from a November 2004 Christianity Today article, The Emergent Mystique, on the Emergent Church movement, including a summary of McLaren’s first book. My comments are italicized and [bracketed]:
"'This is not just the same old message with new methods,' Rob [Bell, pastor of a 10,000 member “emergent church” in Grand Rapids] says. 'We're rediscovering Christianity as an Eastern religion, as a way of life. Legal metaphors for faith don't deliver a way of life. We grew up in churches where people knew the nine verses why we don't speak in tongues, but had never experienced the overwhelming presence of God.'
In fact, as the Bells describe it, after launching Mars Hill in 1999, they found themselves increasingly uncomfortable with church. 'Life in the church had become so small,' Kristen says. 'It had worked for me for a long time. Then it stopped working.' The Bells started questioning their assumptions about the Bible itself—'discovering the Bible as a human product,' as Rob puts it, rather than the product of divine fiat. 'The Bible is still in the center for us,' Rob says, 'but it's a different kind of center. We want to embrace mystery, rather than conquer it.'
'I grew up thinking that we've figured out the Bible,' Kristen says, 'that we knew what it means. Now I have no idea what most of it means. And yet I feel like life is big again—like life used to be black and white, and now it's in color.'"
The emphasis on the mystery of wonder reminds me of what we learned from Phyllis Tickle last weekend and I can definitely relate to the Bell’s realization that they didn’t really understand the Bible after all.
…….
A New Kind of Christian became influential not just because of its content but also its form. McLaren cast the book as a story of two friends, a disillusioned evangelical pastor named Dan Poole and an enigmatic high school science teacher nicknamed Neo. On the brink of despair with his own ministry, Dan is led by Neo—who turns out to be a lapsed pastor himself—through a series of set pieces that introduce the initially skeptical Dan to a "postmodern" approach to Christianity.
The modern period of history, as Neo tells it, is coming to an end. We are entering "postmodernity," an as-yet ill-defined borderland in which central modern values like objectivity, analysis, and control will become less compelling. They are superseded by postmodern values like mystery and wonder. The controversial implication is that forms of Christianity that have thrived in modernity—including Dan's evangelicalism—are unlikely to survive the transition.
[which is exactly the kind of discussions we’ve been having in our Questers discussion of NT Wright’s works
…. recently McLaren has started to sketch the outlines of his vision of a postmodern church. He sketches a big circle labeled "self," a smaller circle next to it labeled "church," and a tiny circle off to the side labeled "world."
"This has been evangelicalism's model," he says. "Fundamentally it's about getting yourself 'saved'—in old-style evangelicalism—or improving your life in the new style. Either way, the Christian life is really about you and your needs. Once your needs are met, then we think about how you can serve the church. And then, if there's anything left over, we ask how the church might serve the world."
He starts drawing again. "But what if it went the other way? This big circle is the world—the world God loved so much that he sent his Son. Inside that circle is another one, the church, God's people chosen to demonstrate his love to the world. And inside that is a small circle, which is your self. It's not about the church meeting your needs, it's about you joining the mission of God's people to meet the world's needs."
With his circle diagrams, McLaren is popularizing the work of the late British missionary Lesslie Newbigin, who returned from a lifetime in India to spend his last years reflecting on the need for a new theology of mission. "According to Newbigin, the greatest heresy in monotheism is a misunderstanding of the doctrine of election," McLaren says. "Election is not about who gets to go to heaven; election is about who God chooses to be part of his crisis-response team to bring healing to the world."
[YES!!!]
…….
If critics overlook the evangelistic energy of the emerging church, they also often lump together two very different kinds of postmodern thought. The most notorious postmodern thinkers have been the "deconstructionists"—French intellectuals like Jacques Derrida and Michel Foucault who seek to show that the cherished ideals of Western society (and Christian faith) are fatally compromised by internal contradictions.
But another stream, less well-known outside universities and seminaries, has taken dissatisfaction with modernity in a more constructive direction. It is these thinkers—the late philosopher Michael Polanyi and Notre Dame professor Alasdair MacIntyre, along with theologians like Newbigin—who are gaining the attention of the emerging church's more theologically inclined leaders.
From Newbigin, McLaren has drawn the idea of the church as "missional"—oriented toward the needs of the world rather than oriented towards its own preservation. From Polanyi and MacIntyre, he concludes that the emerging church must be "monastic"—centered on training disciples who practice, rather than just believe, the faith.
He cites Dallas Willard and Richard Foster, with their emphasis on spiritual disciplines, as key mentors for the emerging church. None of these thinkers has any inclination to throw out the baby of truth with the bathwater of modernity.
.....[end of CT article excerpts]
If you substitute (or add) NT Wright for Willard and Foster, you get something a lot like Ken’s emphasis on outreach (missional), contemplative prayer (monastic) and re-examining what the bible really means through rediscovering the historical context (from Wright). Maybe we are part of the Emergent “conversation”, as McLaren calls it (since it doesn’t rank as a movement yet in his mind).
If you’re up for more reading, here a triad of interesting and related articles. The first is a critique by Chuck Colson of the postmodern movement. The second is an open letter from Brian McLaren responding to the article and the third is Colson’s response to McLaren. I’ve excerpted them, albeit clumsily, if you don’t have time to read them in toto.
1) The Postmodern Crackup - Christianity Today Magazine: "Is postmodernism—the philosophy that claims there is no transcendent truth—on life support? It may be premature to sign the death certificate, but there are signs postmodernism is losing strength……It would be the supreme irony—and a terrible tragedy—if we found ourselves slipping into postmodernity just when the broader culture has figured out it's a dead end."
2) Brian McLaren: An Open Letter to Chuck Colson….I can agree with you that the “no transcendent truth” kind of postmodernism is dead, because as I said, it never was very alive. At most, it was an early, reactionary phase in a yet-embryonic movement that has much more mature, constructive, and positive voices emerging.…You feel that postmoderns have developed a self-contradictory message (THIS IS THE ABSOLUTE TRUTH: there are no absolute truths!). This absurdity might allow them to do anything they want in the name of no absolutes (which to you means “no morality”).…. This is a good thing, and I applaud you for it, and I share your concern!….But try to understand this parallel reality: In the late 20th century, postmodern thinkers looked back at regimes like Stalin’s and Hitler’s…Postmodern thinkers realized that these megalomaniacs used grand systems of belief to justify their atrocities. Those systems of belief – which the postmodern thinkers called “metanarratives,” but which also could have been called “world views” or “ideologies” – were so powerful they could transform good European intellectuals into killers or accomplices. They thought back over European history and realized (as C. S. Lewis did) that those who have passionate commitment to a system of belief will be most willing, not only to die for it, but to kill for it…. I’m tempted to point out the irony that some Christians like yourself seem to be more deeply entrenching themselves in “modernity just when the broader culture has figured out it’s a dead end.”
3) Chuck Colson's Response…. Immanuel Kant spent his life thinking about whether truth is knowable and how you can know it. The issue is clear: are the answers to life found by a thinker sitting in a Dutch oven and exclaiming after much reflection, cogito ergo sum, which in some ways led to the rise of a humanist view of the world, unintended though it was? Or is the meaning of life found in Revelation (which I believe is aided by reason)? This is a very fundamental question…..To put it in the most shorthand way, relativism and deconstruction and existentialism have to lead to the loss of any transcendent authority. Whenever a society lacks transcendent authority, it is going to be governed by whoever can obtain power – and there will be no restraints upon that person or party. The process is almost inevitable….If postmodernism succeeds in destroying transcendent authority, the inevitable consequences are anarchy and nihilism. But nihilism is a vacuum and all vacuums must be filled; so without the restraint of a higher law a tyrant can always be depended upon to step in to fill the power vacuum; and people always choose order over liberty…. If you stop looking for truth and you stop debating primary questions, that is, the fundamental issues people deal with in life, then whoever occupies the seat of power makes those decisions for us. The utopians may think this is a good thing. They believe the victors (their choice) will be more enlightened and benign than the white oppressors who wrote history and of course were only expressing their view of life, which they imposed upon culture. The utopian myth, which for generations has been the principal enemy of liberty, is based on false premises as Christians who are aware of the Fall know...Of course, the postmoderns are right in saying that looking over European history, those who have “a passionate commitment to a system of belief will be most willing not only to die for it but to kill for it.” But is it wrong to die for a noble cause—or to kill in a just war, restraining evil? The Greeks recognized courage as one of the four cardinal virtues – courage to defend justice. Where would we be if people did not have a wholehearted commitment to a system of belief like democracy, freedom, and liberty? We’d still be living under monarchs...What this tells me is that people are still asking the same questions the Greeks asked. They’re still looking for ultimate meaning, still looking for first principles. They’re still plagued by the questions that exist within us because the Imago Dei is within us. The problem is that you are not going to find that answer in the art world. I think we really have a much better answer if we have the opportunity to explain this to her. And that, dear brother, is what my column was all about.
Wednesday, February 16, 2005
Styrofoam Homes
WorldChanging discusses some intriguing low-cost, thermally efficient building material...Styrofoam Homes. Might be an interesting thing to explore for any type of community building.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
In Memory of Sister Dorothy Stang: Martyred Feb 13, 2005
It's sad that we hear so little of the many Christians who literally lay down their lives each year in the service of our Lord, so when I read about the murder of Sister Dorothy Stang, a 74-year-old missionary, originally from Dayton, I thought I'd pass it along.
By organizing poor families and helping them develop sustainable management techniques she angered local loggers. According to the article in the Toledo Blade: "Witnesses said Sister Dorothy read passages from the Bible to her killers before they shot her. One witness said she pulled the Bible from her bag when she was confronted and started reading. Her killers listened, took a few steps back and fired." I heard on NPR that she preceded her readings with comments to the effect of "I don't have any guns, my only weapon is the Word of God"
During her sermon at our church last Saturday, author Phyllis Tickle mentioned that "every death buys something." Indeed, according to Ubiritan Cazetta, chief federal prosecutor in Para state, "Now with the world's attention, implementing the sustainable development project has become a question of honor."
Sister Dorothy had been receiving death threats for years and new the loggers were getting more and more brazen, but she perservered. Let us pray her efforts for the kingdom will continue to bear fruit long after her passing.
Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!
By organizing poor families and helping them develop sustainable management techniques she angered local loggers. According to the article in the Toledo Blade: "Witnesses said Sister Dorothy read passages from the Bible to her killers before they shot her. One witness said she pulled the Bible from her bag when she was confronted and started reading. Her killers listened, took a few steps back and fired." I heard on NPR that she preceded her readings with comments to the effect of "I don't have any guns, my only weapon is the Word of God"
During her sermon at our church last Saturday, author Phyllis Tickle mentioned that "every death buys something." Indeed, according to Ubiritan Cazetta, chief federal prosecutor in Para state, "Now with the world's attention, implementing the sustainable development project has become a question of honor."
Sister Dorothy had been receiving death threats for years and new the loggers were getting more and more brazen, but she perservered. Let us pray her efforts for the kingdom will continue to bear fruit long after her passing.
Maranatha! Come Lord Jesus!
Honing Your BS Filter as an Act of Grace
Read an interesting article about Harry G. Frankfurt, 76, a philosopher, professor emeritus at Princeton, and author of the book "On Bull - - - - ."....The New York Times > Books > Between Truth and Lies, An Unprintable Ubiquity:
Dick Staub discussed it today in his blog, commenting: “Followers of Jesus are supposed to love the lord our God with our mind. Until we recognize the ‘Bulls—t” in the broader culture and faith community, think about it and take action…we are doomed.”
Here are some excerpts from the NYT article…
"'One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much [bull]. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize [bull] and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustained inquiry.'
"What is [bull], after all? Mr. Frankfurt points out it is neither fish nor fowl. Those who produce it certainly aren't honest, but neither are they liars, given that the liar and the honest man are linked in their common, if not identical, regard for the truth. 'It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth,' Mr. Frankfurt writes. 'A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it.'
"The bull artist, on the other hand, cares nothing for truth or falsehood. The only thing that matters to him is 'getting away with what he says,' Mr. Frankfurt writes. An advertiser or a politician or talk show host given to [bull] 'does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it,' he writes. 'He pays no attention to it at all.'
“And this makes him, Mr. Frankfurt says, potentially more harmful than any liar, because any culture and he means this culture rife with [bull] is one in danger of rejecting 'the possibility of knowing how things truly are.' It follows that any form of political argument or intellectual analysis or commercial appeal is only as legitimate, and true, as it is persuasive. There is no other court of appeal.
“The reader is left to imagine a culture in which institutions, leaders, events, ethics feel improvised and lacking in substance. 'All that is solid,' as Marx once wrote, 'melts into air.'"
Dick Staub discussed it today in his blog, commenting: “Followers of Jesus are supposed to love the lord our God with our mind. Until we recognize the ‘Bulls—t” in the broader culture and faith community, think about it and take action…we are doomed.”
Here are some excerpts from the NYT article…
"'One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much [bull]. Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted. Most people are rather confident of their ability to recognize [bull] and to avoid being taken in by it. So the phenomenon has not aroused much deliberate concern, nor attracted much sustained inquiry.'
"What is [bull], after all? Mr. Frankfurt points out it is neither fish nor fowl. Those who produce it certainly aren't honest, but neither are they liars, given that the liar and the honest man are linked in their common, if not identical, regard for the truth. 'It is impossible for someone to lie unless he thinks he knows the truth,' Mr. Frankfurt writes. 'A person who lies is thereby responding to the truth, and he is to that extent respectful of it.'
"The bull artist, on the other hand, cares nothing for truth or falsehood. The only thing that matters to him is 'getting away with what he says,' Mr. Frankfurt writes. An advertiser or a politician or talk show host given to [bull] 'does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it,' he writes. 'He pays no attention to it at all.'
“And this makes him, Mr. Frankfurt says, potentially more harmful than any liar, because any culture and he means this culture rife with [bull] is one in danger of rejecting 'the possibility of knowing how things truly are.' It follows that any form of political argument or intellectual analysis or commercial appeal is only as legitimate, and true, as it is persuasive. There is no other court of appeal.
“The reader is left to imagine a culture in which institutions, leaders, events, ethics feel improvised and lacking in substance. 'All that is solid,' as Marx once wrote, 'melts into air.'"
Evangelical Environmentalism
Here's an interesting article on the increased focus of evangelicals on environmental stewardship: Joel Makower: Two Steps Forward: Are Evangelicals the New Environmentalists?
Be sure to check out the link to the "Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility" put out last fall by the National Association of Evangelicals.
My only quibble with this article is the implication that Christians only started paying attention to this in the '90s when, in fact, Francis Schaeffer wrote his brilliant book on the topic Pollution and the Death of Man in the early '70s.
Be sure to check out the link to the "Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility" put out last fall by the National Association of Evangelicals.
My only quibble with this article is the implication that Christians only started paying attention to this in the '90s when, in fact, Francis Schaeffer wrote his brilliant book on the topic Pollution and the Death of Man in the early '70s.
Wednesday, February 09, 2005
"Torture Chicks Gone Wild"
The election last year drove me to dig deeper into my heart regarding the role I give politics in my view of the world. I want to "set my mind on things above" and look at my government and the way my country interacts with the world from God's perspective, at least to the extent my little pea-brain can comprehend His ways.
How do I align my self with my leaders? Do I ignore them except as a force for restraining evil? If my government does evil, what should my response be? This last questions drove me to ponder the way our government treats our suspected enemies, or at least has allowed them to be treated....
In chapter 6 of the Book of Daniel we read about how the young jewish man rose to upper echelons of King Darius's court. As he was about to be promoted rule over all 120 persian satraps who ruled the kingdom, they were anxious to get rid of the strange foreigner. When they could "find no corruption in him" nor any negligence, they devised a certain way to undermine him by leveraging the source of strength against him:
"We will never find any basis for charges agains this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God."
It worked of course, and into the lion's den Daniel went. But then YHWH, the true source of Daniel's righteousness, allowed Daniel to spend the night in peace in the midst of the wild animals surrounding him (pagan satraps and lions alike).
What does this have to do with "torture chicks", the course term used by Maureen Dowd in herNYT oped piece to describe some female interrogators that our government uses to pry information from Guatanamo detainees?
According to former army Sgt Erik R. Saar, an Arabic translator who witnessed about 20 Guatanamo interrogations (his book is being reviewed for classified info by the Pentagon prior to publication) our government is using the same strategy that the persian satraps used against Daniel. In the face of the religious devotion used by the detainees to keep from breaking, female civilian contractor's provoked the detainees sexually, touching them inappropriately, and so on.
The Boston Herald quotes from a portions of Saar's book obtained by the Associated Press:
"Beginning in April 2003, ``there hung a short skirt and thong underwear on the hook on the back of the door'' of one interrogation team's office, he writes. ``Later I learned that this outfit was used for interrogations by one of the female civilian contractors ... on a team which conducted interrogations in the middle of the night on Saudi men who were refusing to talk.''
In the case of Hani Hanjour, a suspected 9/11 accomplice, a female interrogator faked menstration and touched Hanjour with a bloody hand so that he would become unclean, unable to be received by his god without first washing. Yet there was not water available to him.
A military spokesman denies any torture saying that all prisoners were treated "humanely" and in a way consistent "with legal obligations prohibiting torture." He's probably technically right, and there is some evidence that the incidents Saar reported resulted in reprimands and "additional training" for those involved.
I only pray that God would shine His light into the heart of our leaders and give them courage to attack darkness when ever and where ever it occurs.
What would happen if we tried loving these men that we fear? Not in some twisted carnal way! Love them! With the love only the Divine Spirit, the Paraclete, can inspire and direct. Might they not respond differently? Perhaps not. Perhaps they will spit in our face, as Hani Hanjour did his tormentor. But experience tells us that some will repent, turn away from darkness and accept the invitation into the Kingdom of light. And in the end, only the Light of Jesus will ultimately expose darkness or reveal innocence.
Glory be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, so it is now and so it shall ever be, world without end! Alleluia! Amen.
How do I align my self with my leaders? Do I ignore them except as a force for restraining evil? If my government does evil, what should my response be? This last questions drove me to ponder the way our government treats our suspected enemies, or at least has allowed them to be treated....
In chapter 6 of the Book of Daniel we read about how the young jewish man rose to upper echelons of King Darius's court. As he was about to be promoted rule over all 120 persian satraps who ruled the kingdom, they were anxious to get rid of the strange foreigner. When they could "find no corruption in him" nor any negligence, they devised a certain way to undermine him by leveraging the source of strength against him:
"We will never find any basis for charges agains this man Daniel unless it has something to do with the law of his God."
It worked of course, and into the lion's den Daniel went. But then YHWH, the true source of Daniel's righteousness, allowed Daniel to spend the night in peace in the midst of the wild animals surrounding him (pagan satraps and lions alike).
What does this have to do with "torture chicks", the course term used by Maureen Dowd in herNYT oped piece to describe some female interrogators that our government uses to pry information from Guatanamo detainees?
According to former army Sgt Erik R. Saar, an Arabic translator who witnessed about 20 Guatanamo interrogations (his book is being reviewed for classified info by the Pentagon prior to publication) our government is using the same strategy that the persian satraps used against Daniel. In the face of the religious devotion used by the detainees to keep from breaking, female civilian contractor's provoked the detainees sexually, touching them inappropriately, and so on.
The Boston Herald quotes from a portions of Saar's book obtained by the Associated Press:
"Beginning in April 2003, ``there hung a short skirt and thong underwear on the hook on the back of the door'' of one interrogation team's office, he writes. ``Later I learned that this outfit was used for interrogations by one of the female civilian contractors ... on a team which conducted interrogations in the middle of the night on Saudi men who were refusing to talk.''
In the case of Hani Hanjour, a suspected 9/11 accomplice, a female interrogator faked menstration and touched Hanjour with a bloody hand so that he would become unclean, unable to be received by his god without first washing. Yet there was not water available to him.
A military spokesman denies any torture saying that all prisoners were treated "humanely" and in a way consistent "with legal obligations prohibiting torture." He's probably technically right, and there is some evidence that the incidents Saar reported resulted in reprimands and "additional training" for those involved.
I only pray that God would shine His light into the heart of our leaders and give them courage to attack darkness when ever and where ever it occurs.
What would happen if we tried loving these men that we fear? Not in some twisted carnal way! Love them! With the love only the Divine Spirit, the Paraclete, can inspire and direct. Might they not respond differently? Perhaps not. Perhaps they will spit in our face, as Hani Hanjour did his tormentor. But experience tells us that some will repent, turn away from darkness and accept the invitation into the Kingdom of light. And in the end, only the Light of Jesus will ultimately expose darkness or reveal innocence.
Glory be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, so it is now and so it shall ever be, world without end! Alleluia! Amen.
Tuesday, February 08, 2005
DIY Map: Create clickable, configurable maps in Flash
Here's free software that you can use tocreate clickable, configurable maps in Flash
Monday, February 07, 2005
Didn't think I was that nerdy
Saw this on Alan Crowe's blog and thought I'd give it a try (for the record, he is more of a nerd than I am)...Wx Plotter Fun Tests - Nerd Quiz: "
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