Review: The Red Letters Project

The Red Letters Project is a 3-disk, 40-track album that puts the words of Jesus from the New Living Translation of Mathew to music. The package includes a booklet of The Gospel According to Matthew (NLT) so that you can read Jesus’ words as you listen to them.
The Red Letters Project must be taken on its own terms: rhythmic reading set to rock music. To expect something different than this is to reject the project. So, if you like rock music and lyrics that are sometimes disjointed and not always poetic, yet are word-for-word and line-by-line renderings (often sung, sometimes read) of Jesus’ words in the Gospel of Matthew, then you will enjoy this album.
I recommend listening to some songs from the album many times before deciding to purchase the album. Personally, I think I will enjoy listening to some of the songs from the album from time to time, especially when it comes time to meditate on some of the words of Jesus.

Here are some other review that you might find helpful:

Found at http://www.theredlettersproject.com/
The creators' sincere desire is apparently to see Scripture made famous—or at least better known for those who might otherwise ignore its life-changing inspiration. The project uses every influence of rock imaginable to dynamically impress the Bible's truths in the hearts of listeners.
Red Letters is certainly done professionally, but the recitative nature of cramming historic, and sometimes-antiquated, language into songs is hard to leisurely digest. Will the intended audience of teens, young adults, and music fans find it relevant? Hard to say. But whether the project reaches one or one million, good things will happen. According to some black letters of the Bible—those spoken by the Father, not the Son—putting God's Word out there "always produces fruit. It will accomplish all I want it to, and it will prosper everywhere I send it" (Isa. 55:11). – Christianity Today
“I think you could easily slip this CD on for behind music and see if anyone notices” – Amy
“This music is not your typical church hymns…The singers are fantastic. I also loved the way they mixed the songs on the cds. You have a few up beat songs and then a ballad. It really gave the cds a nice pace.” – Natalie
“This 3-CD set is, honestly, like nothing I've ever heard before. Mario Canido has put the words of the book of Matthew from the New Living Translation to music. Yeah, I hear you - usually these kinds of things don't turn out too well. And, in all honesty, that's what I was expecting here! But, after listening for several days now, I actually like it. No, I really like it! It isn't cheesy. It isn't poorly performed. It's rock music done well, the perfect sound for me to rock out to while I'm driving down the road. And now, I'm getting to the words of Jesus stuck in my head. I find myself singing it in the shower, and thinking of it during the day. Tyndale, I think you have a potential big seller on your hands with the right marketing. Something to remember when you listen: Yes, the lyrics sometimes can be a bit awkward when they don't rhyme. But, Canido has done a wonderful job putting this together in a way where it really isn't bothersome at all. Like I've said already, I've never seen the Bible put to song as well as this. In closing, just let me once again reiterate my approval of and excitement for this project. It has the potential to not only be a big hit and big seller, but also to impact quite a few people's faith who are fading because either they don't understand God's Word, or they've become bored with it. Much thanks to Tyndale for believing in this, and Mario Canido for putting the time and energy into making it happen. Let the kingdom advance!” – Kevin Walker

You can also go here for more reviews.

Evangelism for the Common Man: A Review of NUDGE by Leonard Sweet

I was given a copy of Leonard Sweet’s new book, Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There, for review, by The Ooze Viral Bloggers (http://viralbloggers.com/).

Synopsis
Nudge is a book about evangelism. The type of evangelism that Sweet proposes 1) acknowledges that God is active in the world and is involved in one way or another in everyone’s life. Nudge-evangelism 2) necessitates that “followers of Jesus “know” Jesus well enough to recognize where he is alive and moving in our day” (p. 34); and, so can read the signs of a friend’s life to see how God is at work. 3) Nudging is, then, sharing with that friend in a non-confrontational manner (notice the title of the book: Nudge, not Push) how God is working in their lives. “Evangelists nudge the world to wake up to the alive and acting Jesus and nudge others in the ways God is alive and moving” (p. 34). That is the essence of nudge evangelism. Thus ends the first part of the book.
That being said, there is more work that has to be done in order to do this well, so argues Sweet. Even before we begin nudge evangelizing, we must be able to read what God is doing in another’s life, and to be able to do that we, the potential evangelizer, must be paying attention to God. To pay attention to God we need to use our five senses (he means these in both physical and spiritual ways) to comprehend and notice what God is doing. We also need to be sensitive to the senses of those we are evangelizing to.
The first part of the book is very interesting and the second less so (perhaps I simply need more time to digest the thoughts there). However, there are some gems in the second part.
Length: The book is 279 pages excluding notes; 329 with notes.

Here are some quotes that summarize nudge evangelism well:
“Evangelism is awakening each other to the God who is already there. Evangelism is nudging people to pay attention to the mission of God in their lives and to the necessity of responding to that initiative in ways that birth new realities and the new birth” (p.28).
“For God to do something through us, God must be doing something in us. If we are not always evangelizing ourselves, we have no business evangelizing others” (p. 28).
“Nudging is more about dialogue than monologue…Acts of evangelism intentionally scooch and shimmy people in the direction of truth without the need for knee-bending, beat-my-back alter calls” (p. 31).

Review
The Good:
- Nudge evangelism is doable for all people, whether timid or bold.
- Emphasizes evangelizing to people who we already have a relationship with.
- Comes at evangelism from a perspective of love.
- We have our part in evangelism, but allows for God to do his work as well, which evangelists sometimes don’t make room for.
- Emphasizes that we need to be evangelizing to ourselves as well, and that we ourselves will be changed in the “nudging” process.
- Respects the process and journey of peoples’ lives.
- Presupposes God’s providence and his acting in all creation at all times.
- Integrates the spiritual and bodily senses, which is, at times, very insightful.
- Readable and understandable.
- Semiotics – or the study of understanding signs and the meanings of things in regular life is very interesting and must be a part of evangelism.
The Bad:
- The book makes friendship a precondition of evangelism, but this is not the only kind of evangelism.
- Way too many metaphors and similes. Sweet writes very poetically, which often makes books pleasant to read; in this case, however, the book is burdened and cluttered, and the reader is wearied by Sweet’s poetic metric and long for straightforward prose. However, some of the analogies are quite good.
- A tendency with this type of evangelism might be to read “signs from God” under every leaf and in every nook. Interpreting God’s actions in another person’s life (let alone our own) can be extremely difficult.
- Reading between the lines, it seems that Sweet buys into postmodernism and there are some lines that would suggest that he is a “constructivist” (truth is not there until people see/make it) rather than a “realist” (truth is there whether we see it or not and whether we understand it correctly or not).

My Thoughts
Nudge contains many interesting and good ideas, especially in the first half of the book. It might also spark more people to evangelize, as Sweet has done a good job of making evangelism accessible to all. I was interested in the second section, as spiritual sensation is very interesting, but the chapters are simply too long and burdensome. If you were to purchase or borrow this book, read the first half, and skim the second half. The underlying ethos of the book seems to be a little too “nice.” However, this will make it easier for people today to evangelize. The book is good in many ways, but it is bad in some major ways.

Recommendation and Rating
I recommend this book to all Christians.
Rating: 3/5

#vb-nudge

Calling Evil Good and Good Evil

I purchased a book called The Lamb's Supper (by Scott Hahn) the other day. I bought it because the premise was intriguing: The Eucharist (the Lord's Supper) helps us to understand the book of Revelation (The Apocalypse of St. John). As Revelation is extremely weird, I thought it would be great to read this book by a Roman Catholic scholar. The book has been very good and interesting. I am nearly through its 163 pages. Also, it is interesting to think that, if the Roman Catholic (and Eastern Orthodox) Mass is the major interpretational key to Revelation...then perhaps us Protestants have gotten something very wrong.

I thought it good to share a lengthy quote from the book that will be interesting and informative to all. The passage is about the natural punishment that sin is in and of itself:

"We read on in Romans: "therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves" (Rom 1:24). Wait a minute: God gives them up to their vices? He lets them continue sinning?
"Well, yes, and that is a dreadful manifestation of the wrath of God. We might think that the pleasures of sin are preferable to suffering calamity, but they're not.
"We have to recognize sin as the action that destroys our family bond with God and keeps us from life and freedom. How does that happen?
"We have an obligation, first, to resist temptation. If we fail then and we sin, we have an obligation to repent immediately. If we do not repent, then God lets us have our way: He allows us to experience the natural consequences of our sins, the illicit pleasures. If we still fail to repent - through self-denial and acts of penance - God allows us to continue in sin, thereby forming a habit, a vice, which darkens our intellect and weakens our will.
"Once we are hooked on a sin, our values are turned upside down. Evil becomes our most urgent 'good,' our deepest longing; good stands as an 'evil' because it threatens to keep us from satisfying our illicit desires. At that point, repentance becomes almost impossible, because repentance is, by definition, a turning away from evil and toward the good; but, by now, the sinner has thoroughly redefined both good and evil. Isaiah said of such sinner: 'Woe to those who call evil good and good evil' (Is. 5:20).
"Once we have embraced sin in this way and rejected our covenant with God, only a calamity can save us. Sometimes, the most merciful thing that God can do to a drunk, for example, may be to allow him to wreck his car or be abandoned by his wife - whatever will force him to accept responsibility for his actions.
"What happens, though, when an entire nation has fallen into serious and habitual sin? The same principle is at work. ..."

There are a few things to meditate on here:
1) God's wrath (as all proper wrath) is an expression of love: it is the energy summoned up to rid self or other of evil.
2) Habits
a) Notice how important habits are in this passage. Vice - the habit of doing evil - starts small and then continues on until we are no longer able to control ourselves, but still want to do good (see Romans 7; Aristotle and St. Thomas call this "incontinence"; see next thought). From there, many people who are no longer sure why they should feel bad about their evil deed will be proud of the evil they do...and at that point they have a vice, that is, a genuine bad habit.
b) To help explain the thought above, hare is an explanation of the Vice-Virtue scale:
i)Virtue is having a permanent, fixed habit towards doing what is good. If you are really virtuous, you find doing good easy and are generally not even tempted by evil.
ii) Continence is having a generally fixed will towards what is good...and doing that good most of the time, but not all of the time. Doing good is mostly easy, but temptation is often present.
iii) Incontinence is the partial willing of what is good, but the inability to do it for the most part. In Roman Catholic thought, there are two types of sin: venial and mortal. Venial sin is forgivable in that the person has a will to do what is good, but have not done it (this happens in cases of continence and incontinence). Mortal sin is done from pure vice.
iv) Vice is the habit of doing evil, without care of doing good. Somewhere (whether knowingly or not), a choice has been made to call evil good and good evil. Sins done from vice are not forgivable (they are, thus, "mortal" sins), simply because the person who persists in vice will not ask forgiveness. If something happens in the life of that person where they are "shook up" and turn towards God, then God will, of course, forgive them.
c) Notice also, that as people move from continence to vice, they become less and less wise (Paul says that their minds are darkened).
3) It seems very true that people who act in incontinence or vice need a rude awakening - a cold shower - in order to see things correctly. This has been true in my life (through an act of divine wisdom miraculously breaching my thick skull), in the life of my grandfather (through the fear of dying), and in the life of the Prodigal Son (who suddenly realized that the life of pleasure wasn't nearly as pleasurable as life with his Father).

Review: The Naked Gospel

I have just finished reading “The Naked Gospel” by Andrew Farley. The book is essentially a teaching of the gospel based on what I call a “grace-centric” interpretation of the Bible. Grace-centric” teaching revolves around the idea that Christians are covered by grace, so God does not even really care if they sin. I have encountered teaching like this before, bought into that teaching, and reaped some major negative consequences. So I went into this book knowing that I would not agree. And I don’t.

If you want to read a book revolving around a grace-centric teaching, then this book is for you. It’s all there: Christians have no need to ask for forgiveness anymore; Old Testament law (meaning the moral laws, not the cultic or purity laws) is not a good source of morality for Christians (in fact, it seems as though morality is not so important anymore); We are not on a spiritual journey, but have arrived; etc.

It is interesting to note that I would probably not be able to go toe-to-toe with the author to disprove his exegesis (though this book has inspired my to start looking more seriously at my Bible…not just for personal devotion). But I know from past experience and from present intuition that this teaching is off the rails.

I appreciate people who provide me with different angles to look at the same thing, for they help to sharpen me. In that sense, I am appreciative of this book.

Not much more to say at this point.

On Spanking

One of the best lessons that children need to learn is that there is good and bad and right and wrong…and that what they want or what they think is not always right. When the Bible (especially Proverbs) talks of the Fear of the Lord leading us to wisdom, perhaps we can also think that the fear of parents (i.e. the fear of children for their parents) leads to wisdom. One major issue for parents of young children is whether or not to spank or physically punish (not abuse!) their children. Many people I know are not in favor of spanking their children. There are a variety of reasons for this: 1) I don’t want to physically hurt my child, because it is bad to hurt others. 2) I just can’t do it because it hurts me to hit my kids. 3) My child will not learn anything for the better; it is far better to reason with our children. 4) My child is good and does not need so serious a punishment.

The first reason is terrible, for it does not spell out a good reason for not spanking. The second reason is also unthinking, but more selfish. The third reason appears to be good, but is actually not. The fourth reason is valid. It is good to state here that many people are against spanking because many parents spank out of anger and do it in a wrong way, so it is best to avoid spanking all together. This argument does not hold in regards to other topics, i.e. marriage (I believe that most people in North America do not understand marriage and often go about it in the wrong way, but I will not say that no one should ever get married, for I know that it can be done in the right way) and it does not hold in the case of spanking either. There are many bad people and we will not put an end the human race simply because no body is perfect. Often the bad apple does not spoil the whole bunch, but makes the whole bunch less appealing, though they have not spoilt.

If spanking does not help our children then I agree that we should not spank. But I believe that spanking is a tool in the school of wisdom. When parents spank their children for the right reasons (to teach the child that he is wrong or has gone astray and done something wrong, and when this is done not in a fit of rage, but in the right frame of mind) their child will (eventually) learn that their parents wish that they (the child) do what is best, not simply what they want, for they do not always want what is best, and, often, what is best does not feel good. For instance, an eighteen-month old does not want to get his shots. It is not fun to be stuck with a needle, for the process is painful and makes the child question the parent’s love. But the shot is for the child’s good, and the parent believes that the child will get over the trauma of the experience, and learn that their parents usually try to do what is best for the child. If the child sees that the parent’s habit towards them is love and goodness, then the child will interpret such pain (which was partially inflicted by the parent) as the parent probably still loving the child, although it doesn’t seem like that at the time.

If a child is to grow up in the way of reason, humility, and openness to others, the child must learn to know that he is not always right, and that he should be more open to being good, or else he will suffer punishment/ correction.

But we can still reply to my essay by stating the second part of 3), which is: “It is far better to reason with our children.” True. It is best to reason with children that can understand and implement what they have learned. However, young children are often unable to reason, so what are we to do with them, simply to distract them from the wrong they are doing, or teach them that whenever they do a certain thing (i.e. get too close to the top of the stairs) they get hurt by mommy or daddy? That way they can start to reason for themselves about what to do or not do rather than having the parents do everything for the child. So distraction is not the most helpful, for it doesn’t help the child to reason and think.

Also, sometimes we need to be shocked out of doing something bad, or else we will not get out of the bad habit. Physical punishment can be much more clear and more shocking than verbal reasoning. (especially for those who do not understand words yet, or do not understand them well enough, or who need a ‘bad attitude’ rehabilitated). Perhaps, then, we can call spanking “physical reasoning”, and then it can be said that spanking is a form of reasoning, and, in fact, it helps children to be able to reason better, to be better people, directed not to their own whims, but to what is good and true.

Parents who care for their children must help their children to seek out truth and to do what is good. Enabling selfishness by teaching your kids that they always know what is best is immoral. I hope that the “anti spankers” now understand that, although parents don’t always use corporal (bodily) punishment with the right attitude and for the right reasons, that spanking is not evil in and of itself, but can be a tool in the parent’s toolbox, helping them to properly raise their children to reach their full potential, and to flourish during adulthood and adolescence.

This essay was written after spending some time listening to friends and relatives who take issue with more traditional parental methods such as spanking and making their children eat food that they don’t want or making children follow a strict bedtime. Perhaps the same principles from the above essay can be applied to other questions, such as forcing children to eat foods that they don’t want to eat.

Of course, I have not addressed every angle that this issue of training your child in wisdom through imposing the parent’s will, but I think that I have made it clear that parents should not be imposing their own will just for the sake of getting what they want, but that they do whatever they do from sound reason and love for their children.

As “the fear of the Lord” is the first step to wisdom, a child’s fear of their parents’ wrath (and by wrath I mean that kind of energy that is aroused in us to deal with evil and vice) is also a step in the direction of wisdom. Fear of evil is a good thing, for we should be scared of getting fat if we eat too many candies and fearful of losing our house if we cannot pay the mortgage, and we should be afraid that we can separate ourselves from God. These fears stimulate us to do what is right. However, fear can move us to do what is wrong (cheat on a test because we are fearful of not passing, or not doing the right thing because we fear that others will hate us for doing what is good, or fearing that God wants to be separated from us).

In order to understand this fear, let me turn to a Catholic Thomist named Josef Pieper, who I respect. Here is a summary of his words of Fear of the Lord:

1- Servile Fear: imperfect fear of the Lord. Fears the loss of personal fulfillment in eternal life. Though it is imperfect, it is still good. Decreases as man’s nature is the more deeply penetrated by his love of friendship with God. Prepares the soul for wisdom. Kind of being afraid of God (‘s punishment). Corresponds to concupiscent love of God. Fears the gain of an evil.
2- Filial/Chaste Fear: more truly fear. Love transforms servile fear to a chaste and filial fear. To see sin as sin. Sin is evil to a greater degree than the actual punishment is. More grieved at the actual possible wrong than about being punished for it. Filial fear increases (not in frequency, but in amplitude?) as the intensity with which we love God. This is because the one who truly sees the good/God knows what he can lose. They see more clearly. The first fruit of wisdom itself. Being afraid of actual evil. This kind of fear does not destroy the mental operations, as anxiety (servile fear) does. Corresponds to caritas love of God. Fears the loss of a good.

In writing this, it is not simply my hope to assert my own beliefs, nor do I wish to condemn parents who have chosen not to spank their children because I know that they only wish to do the best for their children. I am, however, questioning those parents who do not spank their children if they are loving their children in the best possible way. On the other hand, those parents who hit their children out of rage and irrationalism must be chastised for raising children that often end up being hateful, distrustful of good authorities, and encouraging their children to live in fear and to not understand love and the difference between good and evil. Let us teach our children to be afraid of the right things and to love the right things, for their good and ours.

In the last analysis, I am not in favor of spanking in and of itself. I am in favor of goodness and truth. And it is for the sake of goodness and truth that I am in favor of spanking.

Parenting takes a love so consistent and pure. None of us can love in this perfect way, but that isn’t to say that we shouldn’t try or that God cannot help us. But as much as possible, let our children learn of God’s character through knowing ours. Help us, Lord.

Afterthought: All issues to do with morality rely on the virtue of prudence, which is the ability to do what is right in varying situations. General guidelines are good, but no person or situation is the same. Give us prudence, Lord.

READ THIS BOOK: Who Really Goes to Hell – The Gospel You’ve Never Heard.

Read this Book: Who Really Goes to Hell – The Gospel You’ve Never Heard.

I recently read Who Really Goes to Hell – The Gospel You’ve Never Heard, by David I. Rudel. I was initially skeptical about this book for a few reasons: 1) The Publisher is Biblical Heresy Press; 2) I am generally skeptical of supposedly new ways of understanding the Bible, as most have a very Postmodern ring to them (as the next book I will be reviewing, called “The Naked Gospel”.

Don’t let these fool you. As I read on, with fewer and fewer objections along the way, I was brought to a deeper understanding of the gospel than I have ever known. The title of the book seems to be pointed at grabbing the attention of those who might not be interested in a scholarly work on many of the essential doctrines of Christianity; but the book is just that. Now, I do not know my Bible well enough the properly critique the book, but what I read really made sense to me.

The book purports to destroy many of the common Evangelical Protestant doctrines in favour of a much more biblically founded teaching. I would say that the book is successful in this. This book has helped me to understand, or at least know another quality viewpoint on, many major important biblical teachings, including: What is the role of the Holy Spirit?, How are we to be judged after death?, What is justification?, Why does repentance feature so prominently in Jesus’ teachings?, Why do we need to continue to ask for forgiveness?, What is the relationship with faith and good works?, How does Jesus save us?, What is the importance of Jesus’ entire life?, What does the Bible mean by “God’s wrath”?, etc., etc., etc.

This book I so helpful that I recommend it to all who read this review. This is my advice: get this book. Granted, I know that this book will give some people trouble and will dismantle their current faith, but I believe that it will build up something more solid in the reader. Also, at the very least, the book provides an alternative paradigm to Protestant teachings; this is helpful as truth is often best discerned when two or more options are in competition and one shows itself to be more dominant.

I do not wish to give away any of the answers described in this book, but I will warn that it seems to be something much closer to a Catholic teaching, although the author doesn’t seem to like Catholics or Protestants very much for their doctrines.

Give this book a read. I have to read it again to glean more from it and to understand it so that I can put it in competition with other paradigms that I know, but I am already excited to have read this book once. Read this book. I have not said that about any other book that I have reviewed to date. After you’ve read this book, let me know what you think.

How Can We Share What We Do Not Know?

I help teach an ESL (English as a Second Language) Bible study class at my Alliance church. I have been noticing that it is often difficult to teach books of the Bible in a meaningful manner, as many books of the Bible are not easily understood. Even with a person who understands the specific book being studied, the teachings of the Scriptures are often difficult to categorize in our minds.

So I've been wondering, why doesn't the church have a catechism class, or a class where we go through the main teachings of the church? This would be done in a systematic manner (and therefore more easily understood), and would have many benefits:

1) Our faith would grow and we would begin to think about and understand God and what he is up to through the church.
2) Our Christian living would be informed and therefore we would be better witnesses.
3) We would be able to worship God more effectively and see his blessings more clearly.
4) We would be more unified as a church.
5) We would be able to explain our faith to others with confidence and therefore be better witnesses.

It strikes me that my church (at least the leadership) has been focused on the congregation being witnesses and being more bold about sharing our faith. However, the biggest reason why we are afraid to share our faith is because we do not really know it. If we do not have even a basic understanding of the faith, then how can we share it? How can we share what we cannot put into words, or live out? (Of course, there is a class like this in my church, but, from a far, it strikes me as less helpful than a catechism class, and it must be attended by more of the congregation. Also this class is not easily accessible to the ESL Bible study attendees, so a separate class must be offered for them. Also, ALPHA classes lean in this direction, too, but they also strike me as less helpful than an actual catechism class, though a catechism class might be able to learn much from the friendly, non-boring nature of the ALPHA program.)

Therefore, I submit that all Christians should be catechized. Perhaps your church doesn't have a book that teaches about the things of the faith in an orderly manner, then find a book that does so. I recommend The Catechism of the Catholic Church As well as the Catechism of St. Thomas Aquinas. Martin Luther has also written a Catechism. The Orthodox Church also has some documents of this sort, though I don't know what they are called.

If this resonates with you (the need for you and/or you and your church to grow in the knowledge and life of the faith), then talk to your pastor about getting an adult catechism class rolling.

Some Articles

I read a very interesting article by Catholic thinker George Weigel yesterday called "Defending Religious Freedom In Full". The article can be found here. Here is a snippet of the article:

"Religious freedom in full also means that communities of religious conviction and conscience must be free to conduct the works of charity in ways that are commensurate with their conscientious convictions. This is neither the time nor the place to discuss the problems that have been posed by tying so much of Catholic social-service work and Catholic health care to government funding – save, perhaps, to note that these problems did not exist before the Supreme Court erected a spurious "right to abortion" as the right that trumps all other rights, and before courts and legislatures decided that it was within the state's competence to redefine marriage and to compel others to accept that redefinition through the use of coercive state power. What can be said in this context, and what must be said, is that the conscience rights of Catholic physicians, nurses, and other health-care professionals are not second-class rights that can be trumped by other rights claims; and any state that fails to acknowledge those rights of conscience has done grave damage to religious freedom rightly understood. The same can and must be said about any state that drives the Catholic Church out of certain forms of social service because the Church refuses to concede that the state has the competence to declare as "marriage" relationships that are manifestly not marriages."

Another interesting article that I have read lately is really an interview of a nun who has her Ph.D in philosophy. The interview is interesting on a few different levels. Clear and sophisticated arguments are made for the important of nuns, gender roles, and the recent issues with the Catholic church. The interview can be found here.

Clarity for Religious Pluralists: Do All Roads Lead to Rome?

My mind has returned to thinking about religious pluralism because of a conversation I had with a coworker the other day, and also because of Lost (where something very similar to the above picture is in a prominent spot in the church where the final scene is held). The basic theory is this: all religions lead to God; therefore, all religions have an equal grasp of truth and goodness. It baffles me that people believe this theory, since it logically does not work. People will not say the same things of different philosophical schools, political traditions, etc., but they feel like they can say this about religions.

So, I’ve finally decided to publish a few short thoughts and questions that must be posed to the religious pluralist:

1. The fact that we have the debate provides some sort of a clue that not all religions believe the same God.
2. Religious pluralists can’t answer the question of what happens to people who are not evangelized, because it doesn’t matter whether you know the truth or not.
3. In fact, a religious pluralist must decide whether or not heaven is for all, since we all pursue goodness in some regard. Bad people pursue their own pleasure, though they do it in a bad way (but how can a pluralist say that anyone’s belief is bad at all?). Therefore, even very bad people believe in God, according to the pluralist. Therefore, religion is completely useless.
4. Pluralists deny that both goodness and truth are important. Yes, most religions agree on basics of morality (don’t kill, etc.) but the metaphysical truths taught are quite different. In fact, even the ethics (i.e. the goodness that is taught) vary greatly. Therefore, religious pluralist care little for goodness or truth, even though they believe that they care very much about goodness.
5. There are definite truth claims that are not compatible at all between religions. Many of these claims are significant and cannot be reconciled.
6. Religion has been around for so many years and the smartest and best advocates of these religions do not advocate that they combine. Why?
7. No mention of pluralism is mentioned in the Bible, why is this?
8. If all religions lead to God, would the religious pluralist be willing to die for Jesus or Allah, etc.? Somehow I doubt it. When the questions become this serious, the religious pluralist will not die for a specific figure or religion.

These are basic questions and statements that a religious pluralist must think through in order to be more faithful to themselves as human beings. For human beings are special in that they can use their brains to ponder such intricacies.

It is good to include a long quote from John Polkinghorne’s book that affirms the truth of the Nicene Creed, The Faith of a Physicist. Polkinghorne is more intelligent, eloquent, and helpful than I am, and so his words will be helpful to understand the topic a little more. I will fill out the blog post with a few more comments at the end.

The Nicene Creed was formulated in the course of the same century that had earlier seen Constantine’s conversion, with its consequence that, for a long while after, the theological debate was internal to Christianity. The ‘many “gods” and many “lords”’ (1 Cor. 8.5) of the Mediterranean world disappeared, as would the gods of Northern Europe, while the rift with Judaism was too deep for serious exchange to take place between the two religions for many centuries. For several centuries after the rise of Islam, the principal Christian response to this new religion was by way of resistance to its incursions and attempts at reconquest. How different is the situation today! World-wide communications, and extensive immigrations, have made us only too aware that Christianity is but one among the several great historic traditions present in the world of the faiths. For a bottom-up thinker there is a perplexing contrast with the spread of modern science. Originally the product of Western Europe, it has proved eminently exportable, so that one can expect to receive the same answer to a scientific inquiry, whether it is made in London or Tokyo, New York or Delhi. In contrast, while there is some degree of Christian presence in almost every country, in many it is tiny and the other historic religious traditions have shown great stability in the face of more than two centuries of widespread Christian missionary effort. It is a pressing problem for a credible theology, second only to the problem of suffering, to give some satisfactory account of why the diversity of religious affirmations should not lead us to the conclusion that they are merely the expressions of culturally determined opinions.

Of course, there is unquestionably a degree of cultural determination in our actual religious beliefs. If I had grown up in Saudi Arabia, rather than in England, it would be foolish to deny that the chances are I would be a Muslim. But the chances are also that I would not have spent most of my life as a theoretical physicist, but that does not mean that science is simply a cultural artifact. We must not commit the genetic fallacy of supposing tat origin explains away the content of belief.

To some extent the effect of culture is the inescapable deposit of the separate historical developments of communities. That does not seem to me to be enough. As with the problem of suffering, the difficulty lies not in the existence of the phenomenon, but in its scale. That there should be diversities of religious understanding is not surprising; that the discrepancies in the accounts of ultimate reality are so great, is very troubling. That perplexity is increased when we consider that it is knowledge of God, with all his power to make himself known, which we are considering. An American Indian said to a missionary, ‘If this faith is so true why was it not given to our ancestors?’ (Cragg points out that an Englishman could reply that it wasn’t given originally to his ancestors either. Some propagation of locally given revelation through space and time is not an incoherent possibility for personal divine action.)

There have been three broad avenues of approach to the problem of religious diversity. [The three avenues are 1) religious pluralism, 2) religious exclusivism, and 3) religious inclusivism. I will not include Polkinghorne’s thoughts on 2) and 3), but he settles on 3), which I think is correct.] The approach which is usually called pluralism regards the worlds’ religious traditions as being, in essence, equally valid expressions of the same fundamental religious quest, different pathways up the spiritual mountain. Its driving force is the conviction that God cannot have left himself without a witness at most times and in most places; that most people cannot have been cut off from his saving grace just by the accidents of circumstance. One of its chief proponents is John Hick, who writes, ‘Can we then accept the conclusion that the God of love who seeks to save all mankind has nevertheless ordained that men must be saved in such a way that only a small number can in fact receive salvation?’ I have already made it clear (chapter 9) that I agree with him in answering ‘No’ to that question. But ultimate universal access to salvation does no require the proposition of the essentially equal validity of all current religious points of view. Hick’s pluralist strategy is based on viewing religious tradition as alternative schemes of salvation for ‘the transformation from self-centeredness to Reality-centeredness’. The Real itself is inaccessible, and it is only the culturally formed personal or impersonal masks of Reality which the world faiths present to us. Hick’s strongly instrumentalist view of religion means that, for the traditions, ‘their truthfulness is the practical truthfulness which consists in guiding us aright.’ ‘The basic criterion, then, for judging religious phenomena is soteriological.’ No one should deny the importance of religious praxis – ‘the tree is known by its fruit (Matt. 12.33, par.) – nor the presence of compassion in all the traditions, but a purely pragmatic account is as unsatisfactory for religion as it is for science.

When we come later to consider some of the conflicts of understanding between the traditions, we shall see how difficult a pluralist position is if one wishes (as I do) to assign cognitive, rather than merely expressive or dispositional, content to religion. Commenting on Hick’s programme claming to discern a noumenal common denominator, Ward says that ‘The assertion that “only the vague is really true” seems highly dubious; but even if it is made, one is making a selection from a wider range of competing truths in religion.’ It is just not the case that, under the skin, the world’s religions are really all saying the same thing, and one can question whether the attempt to impose pluralism on the traditions does not lead, as Schwobel says, ‘to a personal construction of the history of religions and religious attitudes that very few who participate in them would recognize as their own.’ The driving force of much pluralist thought is the desire to iron out differences in the search for tolerance, but this ‘can all too easily turn into a new guise of Western imperialism where subscribing to the principles of the Enlightenment becomes a precondition for participation in dialogue’ (D’Costa).. The particularities of the traditions must be respected.

Reflecting on all that has gone before, religious pluralism seems to spring from a supposedly intuitive opinion, where we realize that all religions lead to similar goods (i.e. ‘be good’, etc.). However, this opinion is simply that, an opinion that seeks reconciliation between religions, while really destroying them all. That religions are dependent on culture or “different interpretations of the one great light behind all religions” is simply not tenable, as simple logic shows us that their principal statements of faith are incompatible. (p. 176-179)

The goal, then, is to seek for the best and most true of the religions, which I am certain is Christianity. To stop gazing at and looking for the truth is to be anti-human, which is a challenge to those who simply think that we just cannot know very much about God beyond that he wants us to do good and love one another. Those people who claim that we cannot know much about God other than simple ethical truths deny the fact – or are blind to it – that love and goodness fall back on truth. For if something is not true, it cannot be good. And to seek God is the greatest task. We watch shows (I am thinking of BBC’s Planet Earth series) where we humans attempt to learn all there is about our natural planet, just so that we can ‘know.’ It is very human to ‘just want to know’. And yet, on the greatest of topics, theology, we chose to turn our brains off and settle for mere opinion, not founded on solid ground.

However, it is very important to note that other religions have aspects of goodness and truth, and that some religions are closer than others to knowing God. To deny this usually comes from a fear that does not allow for gradations of truth and goodness. To release an arrow and have it hit close to the bull’s-eye is much better than to miss the target completely. However, to hit the bull’s-eye is best by far. The bull’s-eye is to know Jesus Christ.

Towards a Philosophy of Worship

A while ago one of my cousins said that he was attempting to write a "philosophy of worship", as he really wanted to contemplate on what worship is before leading his church's youth worship band. He commented that he was unable to find much by way of books on the "core" of worship. So, over the last little while I have been doing a little thinking and reading about worship. Below is the essence of my discovery. Just a disclaimer: the below is simply meant to provide a definition of "worship", not to give any practical advice; however, much practical advice can be worked out once a definition has been given, i.e. once the essence of a thing has been discovered.

It is my hope that people would give some feedback on this. Is something missing? Is an aspect poorly stated? What practical advice can be gleaned by reflecting on how to apply this definition to a worship service?

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What is worship? It seems to me that worship is intimately connected to 1) knowing”, to 2) goodness of the object of praise, and to 3) bestowing honours. Each moment of worship seems to combine all three of these elements.

1) What is the person doing who is worshipping? Worship comes as a result of knowing. This is easy to prove: What we do not know, we cannot worship. The more we come to know the goodness of a thing, the more we admire and worship it. Therefore, worship is limited to our ability to perceive the object of worship.

2) But what is it about the object that is worshipped that makes us stand in awe before it? We worship what we think is good. The sunset strikes us as exceedingly good, as a sign of our Creator’s care for his creation and the time he spent making certain things beautiful, for pure pleasure. The sunset strikes us as good, not only because we love beauty, but because that beauty points to something higher. The same is true of eating good food, of smelling flowers, etc. This is also true when we worship God and sing his praises. The songs we sing revolve around proclaiming and remembering God’s good character. If something is not good, we will not worship it, but disdain it.

3) Each time I have used the word worship so far, it has been imprecise. So far, I have mostly been talking of “awe” or “wonder”. Worship, it seems to me, is our reaction to seeing/knowing a good. And the better the object is, the more we will praise/honour/worship it. This is connected intimately to joy.

These three aspects are the basics of worship. In one sentence, then, worship can be defined as “the honouring of some perceived good.” Or perhaps this definition also serves us well: "simultaneously beholding and praising Goodness."

Relatives

My uncle sent my dad this email today:

Have a happy St. Patricks Day and remember to raise your glass of Guiness and give a toast to your 4^th Great grandfather, Richard Guinn, born in Monaghan Ireland in 1794, passed away Dec 1874 in Walkerton Ontario

And by the way – FYI – you are related to the 34^th President of the United States, Dwight D Eisenhower, your 4^th cousin, 4 x removed.

Cheers

The Great Strength of the Family

I read the below quote in Stanley Hauerwas' book A Community of Character: toward a constructive christian social ethic earlier today. The quote is not Hauerwas', but from Robert Nisbet's Twilight of Authority.

"Even if we assume that in most places at most times a majority of spouses knew something akin to passionate love, however fleetingly, the great strength of the family has everywhere been consanguineal [of the same familial descent/blood] rather than conjugal [i.e. based on emotions]. And here, not affection, but duty, obligation, honor, mutual aid, and protection have been the key elements."

This is difficult to read. Between the lines of the quote, Nisbet whispers an uncomfortable word for people who follow their emotions while forgetting their intellects. We are informed that passion grows cold, that hearts deviate when difficulty knocks, and that love is a verb that often runs away. But there is hope.
Nisbet's whispers more than gloom. When justice and fairness reign, there is hope, there is constancy, and therefore joy and more than a chance for real affections.

We learn so little from society about what things really are.
"What is marriage," I asked Society.
Society did not know, and trying for an answer said, "It is what you want it to be."
"But, Society, aren't you abandoning something reasoned and sturdy for an institution half-made and ready to crumble?" asked I.
"I am simply telling you how it is!"
I walked away, perceiving that Society's angry retort was simply an attempt at masking her stupidity and lack of clarity.
I have had many conversations with Society that run this same way. Yet, sometimes there is a decent answer, or at least half an answer. These, too, are pieces of the puzzle, but often muddied and in need of a good scrub.

"Society!, we long for steak, but you hide a snake under plates! We cry for sunlight and you inject us with B12. We ask for lasting pleasure and you send for a prostitute."

Sometimes we ask God for the same pleasures. Sometimes he gives them, most times he says "in time", other times he withholds entirely for your good. But he does not kill us, give us poor substitutes, or give us twisted goods.

"O taste and see that the LORD is good."
-Psalm 34:8a

Lent and the Liturgical Year.

I grew up in churches that seemed to barely care about the church’s liturgical year. The more I’ve researched and participated in the liturgical year (so far only Advent and Lent) the more I have enjoyed the deepness of the seasons. By saying that I have enjoyed the seasons more, I really mean that I have found depth to them more than ever before.

I encourage you to learn more about the liturgical calendar of the church and to participate in it. You will be surprised how your spiritual life will grow deeper roots.

Review: Live Sent. you are a letter.

In his new book, Live Sent, Jason Dukes encourages Christians to live out their relationship with Jesus constantly. There are four ideas that Jason highlights in order to help the reader to “live sent”, that is, to live as a Christian focused on loving God and others, rather than having a self-serving faith like so many do today.

“First, in order to live sent, there may be some things we need to rethink. Foundational stuff. Life. Church. Relationships. Intention.
“Second, living sent is all about trusting your value. The primary hindrance for a follower of Christ who is made to live sent is that he/she does not trust their God-given value. What we need to understand is that our value is not appraised, it is declared. Trusting what God has declared about us and that He has entrusted His message to us for delivery is crucial to being the letter He made us to be.”
Third, “Living sent is all about doing life together. The epic of humanity… should be seen most beautifully within the movement Jesus started that He called His ‘church.’ Unfortunately, this is too often not the case. We tend to just be letters to each other [within the church] and miss the importance of being letters into culture.
“Finally, living sent is all about giving ourselves away intentionally. Jesus gave Himself away with restorative intent. We know what love is in that Jesus gave up His life for us, so we should give up our lives for others (1st John 3:16). It’s one thing to want to serve because of how it makes us feel. It’s another altogether to love and serve completely for the sake of what happens in the life of the ones we love and serve.”

As I read Live Sent I found myself being moved more and more to loving people all the time, to getting out of the shell I sometimes hide within, and getting to know and love others who I have not bothered with because of some sort of spiritual laziness. I was pleasantly surprised to be encouraged in this way.

However, there are two major problems with the book. The first problem is literary. To be frank, it seems that the author published his first draft without taking the time to correct grammatical errors and tighten up his prose. Of course, the book is written with the mood of a friend talking casually with a friend. I understand that. But writing is more than stringing words together. Also, the author could cut the book almost in half if he would have tightened up his sentences and stopped repeating himself, as if his audience would have trouble following:
“Your story matters, too. As do all stories of living sent. So capture them creatively and redundantly.
“Your story matters, too. As do all stories of living sent. So capture them creatively and redundantly.”
The above quotation is from page 139 of Live Sent. Of course Jason is being funny and friendly as he beats us with redundancy, but this makes for poor literature.

The other problem with the book is that it buys into a philosophy that seems weak. I was glad to read that Jason combated the problems of 19th and 20th Century evangelicalism, but I am not so sure that the system he buys into is much better. I think that Jason’s good ideas can find a home in a better philosophical system.

Part of the problem is that Jason often reacts too strongly against the negative trends of 19th and 20th Century North American evangelical Christianity. For instance, many people are tempted to relegate their relationship with Jesus to special times, places, events, and people. Although he takes issue with all of these I would like to highlight his view of the church, expressed early in the book, on page 11. Jason writes, “The suggested statement of how church has been defined implies that we go to church on Sundays to WORSHIP, as if that is the only time during the week that we worship.” Here, Jason is reacting against the idea that many people reduce their relationship with and worship of Jesus to a two-hour time-slot on Sunday morning. Of course, the reaction against such a reduced Christianity is valid, but does this mean that we should reduce the importance of meeting on Sunday mornings? No.

The kingdom of God requires that we worship God in practical and theoretical ways. For instance, it is important to love our neighbours in their practical, day-to-day lives. This is a way that we love God. But it is also important to praise God by having what I call a “philosophical awe” directed towards him. This can be as simple as seeing a beautiful sunrise and being filled with awe at God’s beauty, goodness, and ability to create. But our best and most consistent form of expressing philosophical awe is at special times, such as in quiet prayer, reflecting on the words of the Bible, or through songs of praise and worship. (Josef Pieper, in his book, Leisure, the Basis of Culture, has written very well on this subject.)

The leveling of places, times, and actions is detrimental to the Christian life. I appreciate Jason’s insights into the problems of a form of Christianity, but he need not toss the baby.

Despite the two major criticisms listed above, I am very pleased that Jason Dukes reminded me to live less selfishly, to care for others, and to encourage the “sending out” and not just the “gathering in” of Christians.

I would recommend this book if it was better written. I would highly recommend Live Sent if, in addition to the last stipulation, it was less reactionary and more balanced.

On Painting Nudes

One tidbit I picked up from reading Chaim Potok’s fantastic novel, My Name Is Asher Lev, is that when an author paints a nude, it is a test of his character. Will the painter be overwhelmed by the beauty of the girl being painted, or will he be controlled enough that his desires won’t hinder him from creating a great painting? If the painter is not temperate enough, his painting will show it; and, if the painter is temperate, than he will be able to see the subject clearly and to paint her effectively.

As the painter during the painting of the nude is tested, I am sure that the author of books about sexuality, marriage, and the like is tested. If the author is temperate, he can gaze at his subject (so to speak) and discern its essence, its inner workings. If the author of such a book is not in control of himself, then the book will be a disaster, without as much depth of insight and generally stuck up on issues that are not of the essence of the subject.

We all know that lust clouds our thinking, making it nearly impossible to think clearly, leaving us mentally blind until the bout of lust either passes, is fought off, or is run away from. This is what struck me as I read the long, scholarly, and insightful apologetic for the Catholic Church’s stance on marriage, Theology of the Body, written by the late Pope John Paul II. That a celibate man can write such a profound book on the topic of marriage is astounding to me.

It is obvious to me that John Paul II was very temperate, that is, very much in control of his thoughts and desires. If he were not temperate, he would have been unable to share so profoundly, as a master painter, his insights into marital life, as his mental vision would have been clouded by other, probably less pure, thoughts. It is easy for the mind to wander, to be clouded, for the power of intellectual sight to be blurred, but this is not the case with John Paul II’s Theology of the Body.

May we all be so temperate, so clear-minded, and so profound. This will be difficult in a sex crazed culture. John Paul II is a testament, a witness, to the possibility of temperance in our time.

More Thoughts on Helping Haiti and Disaster Relief in General

If you have not read the January 23RD-29TH 2010 edition of the Economist, you should. The reason is this: As I read the two (and a half?) articles on Haiti I felt affirmed/ vindicated in my previous thoughts on helping Haiti.

The first article on Haiti, “A plan for Haiti”, had the same sort of focus as my recent blog entry: authority. The subtitle to this first article in the Economist is: “Haiti’s government cannot rebuild the country. A temporary authority needs to be set up to do it.” However, the article did not seem so worried as I am about the possible looting and mini-tyrants running around. I read something similar about the problem of looting being too prominent in media reports. However, I remain worried – and I think justifiably so – that the power gap will often be filled by cruel people if good people do not step into it. In fact, the article, ‘A plan for Haiti”, seems to finally take the same position: “The longer it lasts, the more likely that desperation turns into violence.”

The second article focused on the problems that foreign aid agencies had in distributing aid and in dealing with the situation. The third article, which was somewhat of a mini article is very interesting and titled “Too much of a good thing?” This article focused on what can be learned from the 2004 tsunami relief effort. This article underlined the need for authority and organization as well. But I bring this article to your attention because it affirmed my thoughts about how effective donated money is. Apparently, only 39% of the money NGOs had promised to spend had actually been spent within 9 months (the article doesn’t say what happened with that promised money after the nine month period). Also, 75 tonnes of out-of-date medicine was destroyed by Indonesia.

Although this last paragraph might lead to skepticism regarding donating to relief funds, it should not. Even if opening up our hearts sometimes comes at the expense of turning off our brains, I am encouraged that so many people are willing to open up their pocket books. Also, the simple solution to this is for relief funds to set a donation cap, where they receive money into the specific relief fund up to a point (say $10 million – just a guess) and make sure to tell people who are donating after that cap has been reached that their donations are now going into their general fund and will come out of their general fund to help the specific cause if it is needed. Doctors Without Borders has done something similar and I think it is quite intelligent and less wasteful.

In fact, I think there are several solutions to the problems that we have seen with Haiti, namely a general disorganization of aid due to certain factors. Instead of all aid coming at once and bottlenecking, it might be good if a small group of people capable of assessing the situation came in with helicopters and surveyed the disaster area. This way, several important plans can be made, such as how much aid is actually needed, and the best ways to get the aid to where it needs to be most. At the same time as the “assessment group” comes in, a small group of aid-deliverers comes in, so as not to bottleneck, but still to deliver aid. (Of course bottlenecking will not always occur, but it will be one of the factors that we need to be aware of.) Then, after the “assessors” have made up a quick plan, the plan should be implemented immediately, taking into consideration such questions as: 1) How much construction equipment needs to be brought in so that the aid can have clear roads to travel on? 2) How much aid is really needed? 3) How can we coordinate with the locals and already established aid organizations? 4) What is the best way to establish order and a proper authority structure?

In fact, I would be surprised if the UN did not already have something like this plan in their books. If not, someone certainly needs to figure out a proper manual for disaster relief. Something like this will happen again and I am sure that faster, more effective aid can be delivered.

On the Essence of Marriage, Writing Well, and Good Popular Academic Writers

I want to write a book on marriage titled “ On Marriage”. It has been a recurring thought of mine that an intellectual and heartfelt defense of the classical Christian view of marriage (one man, one woman, lifetime commitment, love, kids, under God) would be timely. My goal is to defend the Christian view of marriage against the modern liberal take of marriage, which is, as far as I can tell, summed up in a few phrases: “We love each other. We want the benefits of civil marriage. No more questions.” My hope is that the book will appeal to the average reader (Christian or not) and not go over anyone’s head.

I have begun my research, taken some notes, and just the other day I wrote a preliminary outline. Things are going well (though slowly). Still, there are a few snags that will have to be solved along the way. One of these problems is particularly troubling to me: I don’t know if I can write a book like this for a popular audience.

After reviewing my first outline I realized that no one would read this book but academics and pastors due to the technical language, depth, and possible length of such a book. It is not terrible for a book to be read only by academics and pastors, since scholars and pastors have quite a bit of influence these days, so I might change my target audience. But for now, I want to provide a teaching on classical Christian marriage that will appeal to the average reader.

(I became aware that I tend to write more academically after giving my thesis paper, “Virtue Ethics and Pastoral Ministry”, to some well-intentioned family members. One family member said they had fallen asleep when they first attempted to read my thesis. They have not gotten back to me yet. The other family member said that it was quite technical and also has failed to get back to me on any further impressions.)

These thoughts all lead me to wonder: what makes for good, popular –yet academic – reading? I currently have few answers to this question. The clues I have gathered come from other authors who are very clever and draw audiences both academic and average. The best way for me to think about this is to focus on four authors who I think do a good job of being both popular and academic: Malcolm Gladwell, Gilbert Meilander, Josef Pieper, and Clive Staples Lewis.

I think I was too young when I read my first book by Malcolm Gladwell. I was twenty or so. The book was The Tipping Point. I didn’t quite understand the book, but I believe it is about when things (movements, brands, etc.) go from moderately popular (or worse) to very popular. It was a good book as far as I can remember.

The second of Gladwell’s books I have read is called Blink, which is an interesting book about how important intuitive knowledge is. By intuition I don’t mean the type that we often think of when we hear the word “intuition”. Here I am not talking about unstudied, almost mystical, intuition, but the intuition that comes after long study of a subject or topic, which results in the ability to make correct snap decisions. Now, I’m not sure if that is what the book is really about, but I think it is. I didn’t totally get that book either. I was probably twenty-one or so.

In the past five months or so I’ve become more acquainted with and therefore more comfortable with Gladwell. Over the past year I have started to understand him better. I have listened to some interviews of Gladwell regarding one of his newer books, Outliers, and I have been reading the collection of his best pieces from the New Yorker called What the Dog Saw. I have been impressed with Gladwell in two specific ways: depth of insight and the eloquence (readability). Gladwell has an ability to talk about complex things with patience enough not to overlook important factors that audiences need to know about, and he does this in a very readable and interesting way.

Therefore, I have decided to learn from Gladwell. What have I learned so far? I’ve learned that someone can make me interested in why Heinz Ketchup is so popular and that attempts to make a new ketchup fail. Gladwell knows how to make any topic interesting, whether they are serious topics (the character traits of geniuses, CEOs, etc) or not (Ketchup). Gladwell also strikes me as somewhat quirky, which is endearing.

From Gladwell’s works I have gleaned a few important pieces of advice: 1) It is important to be patient with your audience; don’t assume that people will follow (and therefore want to read) your work if you get lazy by assuming that people can understand your inferences. 2) A certain mastery of style is necessary, or a writing can become quite boring; it is good if your topic is interesting, but it is even better if you can get people excited about your topic through your persuasiveness and ability to write with style.

I have only a few words on Gilbert Meilander and Josef Pieper. First, I must note that these two authors are more academic than they are popular, though they have found admirers among more average readers. I have learned from Meilander that good writing often involves the weaving of story and fact. I have found that this provides a certain beauty to his academic musings. Then again, other times I find that this distracts me and makes it difficult to pull out what he is actually trying to get at. Pieper, on the other hand, writes succinctly and powerfully. Most of Pieper’s books are on topics of major philosophical importance, and yet he rarely spends more than a hundred pages on a volume, which is amazing to me.

Thinking on the works of Meilander and Pieper I realize that little is added to what can be gleaned from Gladwell: Style (whether more poetic or more powerful) and content (providing evidence and making good points based on the evidence) are essential to master.

These same essentials appear in the works of C.S. Lewis. Lewis, for me, is almost the pinnacle of making very deep things extremely understandable. The first book of Lewis’ that I read was his very popular, very influential, and very scholarly (and yet simple) Mere Christianity. I did not understand much of that book during my first read-through. (To be truthful, I now recall that I have had very little understanding of Gladwell, Meilander, Pieper, and Lewis upon first encounters. I attribute this to my young brain. By young brain I mean the brain I had before I actually began to think of things with depth; before I could read well. In fact, I used to read merely for the pleasure of consumption rather than for knowledge, intellectual sparing, or the simple pleasure of reading itself. I was like a glutton who ate food even after he was full; I cared little for true nourishment. But perhaps this is another point to be gleaned from popular academic writers, that not everybody will understand them at first, but more exposure will help.)

I believe that Lewis’ ability to boil down major problems into a few understandable paragraphs must come from his own intellect, which I believe did this almost automatically (though, perhaps is more like the intuitive knowledge that I referred to when speaking of Blink; a great ability to see things quickly, but only after having much previous exposure).

Look at Lewis’ works. They are not very long, and yet they deal with topics of such depth that we could spend a lifetime of study on them. It was only after having studied, in depth, the seven virtues of the Christian life, (four natural: prudence, justice, fortitude, temperance; three supernatural: faith, hope, love) that I looked back at the sections in Lewis’ Mere Christianity that cover these virtues and found, to my amazement, that he boils some of these teachings down to mere pages. Lewis was also great using examples that made sense.

There is one common trait that I see in the authors mentioned, which must be essential to any intellectual writing: Gladwell, Meilander, Pieper, and Lewis have the uncanny ability to see the essence (the core part or parts) of a thing (whatever topic they write on). Therefore, they can boil there topics into their most basic elements, and if you explain these most basic elements, then you have done a good job of boiling a difficult topic into something bite-sized, or at least manageable. I can also divide the four authors into two different stylistic schools (some of these authors fit nicely into either school): 1) Flowy, and; 2) Brisk. The Flowy school is easily identified because it often weaves different ways of saying the same thing together, though almost unnoticeably, or it brings up certain themes over and over again without us noticing until right before it comes up. The Brisk school writes short works powerfully and succinctly.

To sum up the two major lessons I have learned I will use two key phrases and define them. The first issue in writing popular academic works is what I will call the “academic concern”. Academic concern has to do with discovering the essence of a topic, or finding the core element or elements of a topic. Once this is discovered, a writer will be able to explain difficult topics in more easily managed pieces, unless the author gets lazy. The second lesson can be called “poetic concern”. The poetic concern refers to the ability to use a particular style (Flowy, Brisk, etc.) well, or the ability to combine styles well in one’s writing.

How can I apply this gleaned advice to my (hopefully) upcoming book, “On Christian Marriage”? First, I must address the “academic concern” by see the essence of the thing clearly. And being able to explain the essentials of marriage in a understandable and logical way.
Second, I can apply the knowledge gleaned from good popular academic authors by writing “On Christian Marriage” in a specific style (the “poetic concern”), either Flowy, Brisk, some combination of the two, or in a school that I have not thought of.

How to Help Haiti

If you are like me, you feel genuine sympathy for all the people suffering in Haiti, but your dilemma is that you are so far away and feel both physically distant and powerless to do anything. The generous donating of money is good, but there is must be something more that one can do. So, I will write to help Haiti, although I am not sure that this article will be of much help. As I have already said, I am far from Haiti. I am no expert on Haiti and provide this article as food for thought and action.

As I listen and watch news programs about Haiti I am astonished to find that most people focus on physical help. Of course the people in Haiti desperately need medical attention, food, housing, money, and heavy machinery to move ruble. This we cannot doubt. However, alongside previously listed needs, Haiti needs to have virtuous people with specific skills to rise up.

Good, skilled people. Haiti will not recover unless good, skilled people come into Haiti and train Haitians or find Haitians that are good, skilled people. What I call the physical help (medical attention, food, housing, money, and heavy machinery, etc.) that Haiti needs will only be useful if there are people who have the morals and the skills to organize, lead, and distribute well.

In the radio and television clips that I have seen, there has been little talk of Haitian leadership. I’m not sure why. However, I believe that the main concern for Haiti right now is leadership. Haiti needs a messiah (small ‘m’; meaning a political leader who will help to save Haiti from trouble) to rise up. When there is chaos and trouble evil tends to thrive.

There are stories of groups of Haitians who have just received food from foreign aid agencies and some person running into the crowd and saying ‘a tsunami is coming’ so that everyone will abandon their goods. The “boy who cried wolf” then turns into the wolf and takes all the goods that people have left behind. There are bands of people who – either because of their weapons, the size of their band, or their physicality – force other Haitians to give up whatever goods they have left.

Haiti needs good politicians who will unite people to the good causes of providing organization, civil stability, and some kind of law enforcement. Without political leaders (and this may be no more than a father leading his family, or a woman leading a group of 20-30 people) who are morally good and have political know-how and skill, evil leaders will rise up and torment the country.

Good, trained doctors, nurses, engineers, machine operators, economists, etc. are also needed in Haiti. Professionally qualified Haitians with these skills need to be found or trained. Without trained professionals there is little hope that Haiti will recover quickly or well from this recent disaster; both physical and personnel needs have to be met for Haiti to recover.

Help Haiti by giving money if you want. Giving money is better than nothing. However, my fellow Canadians must consider the needs for good personnel Haiti. If you are a good leader that can help organize and enable people, (and I doubt that you are), or if you are a qualified doctor, nurse, or an engineer, then consider actually going to Haiti. Or perhaps you know someone who fits into one of these categories that you can mention this to. If you cannot help and know of no one to help in Haiti, then we must pray. We must pray for order and leaders and engineers and doctors either to go to Haiti, to be trained up in Haiti, or both.

We must pray for Haiti. We must pray for good leaders to conquer evil gangs. We must pray for a type of Moses. May God hear the cries of the Haitians and our accompanying cries! Not that prayer is our only recourse, but it is an essential part of our love coming to fruition. Love must also come to completion in actions. How are we acting?

When A Civilization Is Ripe For Its Fall

In the first article of my last entry, Beginnings of Thoughts on American Politics and Religion, I made mention in the last paragraph that North American Christians should be thanking right-wing Christian groups for preserving the voice (and therefore the power) of Christian conscience in North America. Now, I may disagree with the Christian Right or the Moral Majority, but I do thank them for showing some gusto that many Christians have lost.
I was reminded of this as I was reading one of my favorite books today. Joseph Pieper's The Four Cardinal Virtues is an absolute treasure, and it is especially helpful for people who have grown up in a Christianity that is supposed to view sex as moderately good at best and to view anger as an absolute evil.
The quote I am getting to comes from a chapter called "The Power of Wrath" in the section on Temperance. Pieper says that wrath is in fact a Christian virtue if it is exorcised properly. Wrath as a virtue, says Pieper, is the energy necessary to do good and fight injustice. Other forms of anger are evil. "Anger is 'good' if, in accordance with the order of reason, it is brought into service for the true goals of man [i.e. justice, goodness,etc.]" (p. 194). Quoting St. Thomas he writes, "Reason opposes evil the more effectively when anger ministers at her side" (p. 194).
And now comes the quotation that I have been providing such a long preamble for, which itself is something of a preamble for its last paragraph that I want to highlight:

It is particularly in reference to overcoming intemperateness of sensual desore that the power of wrath acquires a special importance.
Aquinas, it is true, also says that an acute temptation to unchastity is most easily conquerable by flight. But he likewise knows that the addiction to degenerate pleasure-seeking can by no means be cured through a merely negative approach, through convulsively "shutting one's mind" to it. Thomas believes that the deterioration of one power of the soul should be healed and supplemented by the still undamaged core of some other power. Thus it should be possible to subdue and, as it were, to quench the limp intemperance of an unchaste lustfulness by attacking a difficult task with the resilient joy generated in the full power of wrath.
Only the combination of the intemperateness of lustfulness with the lazy inertia incapable of generating anger is the sign of complete and virtually hopeless degeneration. It appears whenever a caste, a people, or a whole civilization is ripe for its decline and fall. (p. 196)

Now, I'm not predicting the fall of North America or anything, but it might be helpful to remember that Christians sometimes need to get angry (virtuously), and to speak out to people who are doing injustice and allowing injustice. Although this might take great courage for a people who seem bent to a non-Christian niceness, and although our pluralistic society tends to beat the voice out of us (how ironic, as its voiced intention is to do otherwise), we must commit ourselves to God's ways, and to helping our earthly society by encouraging goodness, justice, temperance, courage, etc. And as salt, we will help to preserve.

American Politics, Tolkien, Monks with Guns, Fenelon, and Ecclesiastes

Yes, it has been a while since my last post. Please forgive the haste in which this has been written.

1) Beginnings of Thoughts on American Politics and Religion
2) J.R.R Tolkien's The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun
3) Buddhist Monks with Guns
4) Francois Fenelon on Dealing with Our Sins
5) Beginnings of Thoughts on Ecclesiastes

1) Beginnings of Thoughts on American Politics and Religion
I was thinking about the ideal forms of church and state and the ideal relationship between church and state the other day. Amidst my pondering I realized the the American Constitution is not as friendly to Christianity as is commonly thought.
Here are the beginnings of some more serious reflections to be had in the future:
I see the model in the USA to be essentially pluralistic. Freedom of religion is an essential freedom in the US. This pluralistic model seems partially good, especially from a stance within our own age (democracy was considered the worst form of government according to Plato, Aristotle, Aquinas (I presume), etc.). The pluralistic/democratic model frees Christians from much potential persecution, allows for freedom of worship, and does not (usually) hinder the Christian conscience.
However, I think that the pluralistic/democratic form of government bows to a Darwinian or perhaps Nietzschean theory, where the will to power conquers over the search for virtue, goodness, and truth. The theory is that the greatest good for the greatest amount of people is found in individual wills making concessions to each other. Personal concessions for the public good, this is the essence of the social contract (Rousseau). This seems good to the modern individualist, but might strike people from other ages as anti community. I would agree.
The basic assumption here is that people will get their way most of the time, but will have to give up certain freedoms of their will (i.e. the want to steal, etc.) in order for public order to preside, which is not so much for the good of the nation as it is for the good of the individuals.
But this presumes a nation of weak people. This Rousseauian/Lockean theory can easily be torn asunder once people with strong wills and the power/ability/money to get what they want realize that they can take advantage of the system. This has happened in the case of many powerful business owners and politicians.
The average person either has a weak will or does not have the means to get what they want. That is what the social contract theory presupposes. A Nietzschean Super Man with a strong will and the ability to get what his will desires can ruin such a system. I'm not sure how this might work (either than business and political scams, etc.) in real life, but this seems to be a theoretical weakness to the social contract theory.
The democratic theory also turns out to be largely Darwinian: the strongest survive. In the case of politics this means that people group with the most numbers, or the loudest voice can take over the system. In the past, this means that the Christian voice has stood out above the rest. This has lead to a Christian presumptuousness that America is a Christian nation.
I think that the opposite is true. I believe that America is set up to have a national religion that is largely deist. I believe this because the lowest common denominator between religions is that there is a god who created everything who is basically good, who we should follow. A pluralistic nation will most likely eventually ending up combining a number of theories about God into a watered-down version of sorts. Unless, of course, separate religion's voices become louder and therefore the dominant group.
American will never have more than a national religion because it is one people under God...it combines God, nationhood, and democracy into one system. The USA is not a Christian nation; it is a nation that is under whatever god becomes the most popular.
This overarching Darwinian underpinning (strongest survive) seems to lean to the fact that the social contract theory (most good for the most amount of people through conceding of will power for a orderly system that will allow my weak will to get what it can, but not so much that it won't get hurt) can be overcome by a Nieetzchean one (those with the strongest wills and the power to get what they want will rule).
The sketch presented here, rather than seeming basically Christian, appears to be anti-Christian in its presuppositions and leaning...as much as this was not intended by the Founding Fathers.
Although this system can be used for Christian means (when Christianity is at its most popular). Even when the system is used for Christian means, it can be argued that a Darwinian theory is supporting the Christian church (and vice versa) rather than the church providing for a more permanent political/theological/moral system.
The presiding pluralistic/Darwinian frame in the USA has seemed rather comfortable to Christians in the past, but that feeling is changing for many Christians. As more and more people from more and more countries find their homes in the USA, this might change even more. Perhaps the only reason that it has not changed more rapidly is because of groups like the Christian right and the Catholic church have kept their voices strong in the public square. That last one is an interesting thought.
Somewhat related, read this article from the New York Times.

2) J.R.R Tolkien's The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun
I just thought I would mention that I have been enjoying J.R.R. Tolkien's posthumously published The Legend of Sigurd and Gudrun, which are two famous Norse poems. Tolkien has added some of his own words to these works, but he follows the old stories fairly well. He gave many lectures and classes on Norse legends.
I like reading sources from heroic ages. I enjoy the bravery, the interaction of mystical with every day live. Perhaps I am a romantic. I have also enjoyed reading this book of Tolkien's because the language is so poetic. It is incredible how much can be conveyed in a stanza with a mere thirty words to it. Beautiful.

3) Buddhist Monks with Guns
I read an interesting article today about violence and Buddhism. I mention it simply because it is interesting. The fact that Buddhist monks can commit violence, especially when faced with death, is not that surprising. Violence can be used for both good and evil.
Check out the article here: Monks with Guns: Discovering Buddhist Violence by Michael Jerryson

4) Francois Fenelon on Dealing with Our Sins


I have found the below quote from Francois Fenelon's Spiritual Progress to be quite helpful. It is from a chapter entitled "On Daily Faults and the Toleration of Ourselves".

"You will there find the weaknesses necessary to deprive you of all confidence in your own strength; but this discovery, far from discouraging, will serve to destroy your self-reliance, and to raze to the ground the edifice of pride. Nothing marks so decidedly the solid progress of a soul, as that it is enabled to view its own depravity without being disturbed or discouraged.
"It is an important precept to abstain from doing a wrong thing whenever we perceive it in time, and when we do not, to bear the humiliation of the fault courageously.
If a fault is perceived before it is committed, we must see to it that we do not resist and quench the Spirit of God, advising us of it inwardly. The Spirit is easily offended, and very jealous; He desires to be listened to and obeyed; He retires if He be displeased; the slightest resistance to Him is a wrong, for everything must yield to Him, the moment He is perceived. Faults of haste and frailty are nothing in comparison with those where we shut our ears to the voice of the Holy Spirit beginning to speak in the depths of the heart.
"Restlessness and an injured self-love will never mend those faults which are not perceived until after they are committed; on the contrary, such feelings are simply the impatience of wounded pride at beholding what confounds it. We must quietly humble ourselves in peace; I say in peace, for it is no humiliation to do it in a vexed and spiteful way. We must condemn our faults, mourn over them, repent of them, without seeking the slightest shadow of consolation in any excuse, and behold ourselves covered with confusion in the presence of God; and all this without being bitter against ourselves or discouraged; but peacefully reaping the profit of our humiliation. Thus from the serpent itself we draw the antidote to his venom."

5) Beginnings of Thoughts on Ecclesiastes
I wrote this some time ago after reflecting on Ecclesiastes. I read Ecclesiastes the other day and I still stand by much of what I wrote. However, I would like some interaction on this one so as to help my thoughts.

The Book of Ecclesiastes as Tragedy

If you have ever read the book in the Bible titled Ecclesiastes I’m sure that you have gone away puzzled and depressed. All throughout the book the author is telling us that there is no point to anything that we do, and that we must learn to enjoy our lives as much as we can, yet not too much so that we do not make God angry.
It seems to me that the author of Ecclesiastes has either missed a few important ideas, or he has become overcome with despair. The author does not believe in God’s vindication of the righteous, that is for sure. Although, he does believe that the moderately just will live above God’s “sin radar” and below the notice of those in power who might kill him or take advantage of him for his righteousness. Also, he believes, contrary to other biblical books, that the world is, at its core, conflicted: the good and the evil suffer similar fates, yet there is an importance to goodness; unjust rulers take advantage of everyone, yet wisdom does bring light to the eyes. He believes both that there is a just creator God, and that it is better to never have been born than to have lived at all.
Quite simply, the author of Ecclesiastes is conflicted and thus filled with despair. It is not a happy book at all.
The book of Ecclesiastes is a tragedy. The core of tragedy is irresolvable conflict. For instance, fairness is good and evil is bad, but there must be evil to have fairness, which is not really fair at all. However, it must be true that there is good and there is evil, or else we would not feel the conflict. One instance of this (and the book is filled with other such examples) is found in Ecclesiastes 5:8-9:
If you see in a province the oppression of the poor and the violation of justice and right, do not be amazed at the matter, for the high official is watched by a higher, and there are yet higher ones over them. But all things considered, this is an advantage for a land: a king for a ploughed field.
As long as there is power, there will be those who use it solely for their own gain, but these structures are necessary, so that there will be peace in the land. One ruling king is better than factions, and the king is powerful enough to protect you from oncoming armies, therefore providing a sense of peace and stability (represented by the ploughed field).
I believe that the author’s tragic outlook springs from his agnosticism. “Just as you do not know how the breath comes to the bones in the mother’s womb, so you do not know the works of God, who makes everything” (11.5); also, “I saw all the work of God, that no one can find out what is happening under the sun. However much they may toil in seeking, they will not find it out; even though those who are wise claim to know, they cannot find it out” (8.17). Although it is claimed that the teacher is wise (12.9), he does not have the same wisdom as that of the authors of the book of Proverbs. Perhaps the “wisdom” of Ecclesiastes even scorns the wisdom of Proverbs, or perhaps it was to be used as a sort of corrective for the extreme positivism found in Proverbs. Either way, Ecclesiastes leaves you feeling cold, unimportant, and in despair.

How do we respond to the author of Ecclesiastes? Is God conflicted in himself, with both good and evil? Or perhaps the traditional Christian understanding of the problem of evil is more satisfactory: evil springs from the free will of creatures, not from the Creator. We all know this, deeply, for we give prominence to fairness and order. All of the problems in Ecclesiastes can be reduced to three answers: 1) The evil in the world comes about from our moral problems, not from God; and, 2) God is “for” humans. This was revealed in Jesus’ coming to earth and his death for all, so that we might be with God. It is not his will for us to be disordered or in despair. 3) Judgment will solve the apparent inconsistencies involving justice in time. (both the judgment of sins in Christ, for the saved, and the judgment of the sins of the world, for those who do not accept Christ’s offer of salvation).

The tragic view affirms evil, while diminishing the role of goodness. This view destroys us, causing us to despair. The proper view is to see that god is good, and that he is being merciful to the evil so that they can repent of evil, and find salvation. He will later make all things new and he will order the universe aright. This brings light to our eyes and life to our bodies. Therefore, those who pursue life must affirm God’s essential goodness, and be patient until it is time for the final judgment.

Why is Ecclesiastes in the Bible? First of all, the Bible is not a children’s book. It takes intelligence and wisdom to be able to understand and interact with what is in the Bible. Ecclesiastes must be a large question mark for those who think that we should believe every word in every book of the Bible. If we affirm the words of Ecclesiastes, we must dismiss the affirmation of the goodness of God that is found in all other parts of the Bible. Therefore, we must be more adult in out interpretation and understanding of the Bible.
Ecclesiastes is perhaps best understood as a teaching instrument. When I taught ESL in China, after teaching good English for a while, I would insert some bad English (i.e. tell them that a picture of a dog is really a cat). I did this to make sure that the students were really learning and paying attention. Perhaps that is the place Ecclesiastes in the biblical canon, to instruct through falsehood. Otherwise, how could it be included among the other “wisdom literature”? Perhaps the same person or group of people put the wisdom literature together, knowing that they would use Ecclesiastes as a corrective and as a “false prophet” to test students. Perhaps this is what is meant in the Epilogue? (Besides being wise, the Teacher also taught the people knowledge, weighing and studying and arranging many proverbs (12.9).)
Perhaps this is when Jews decided that they needed to believe in resurrection to believe in a good God.