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.