Flourishing

I opened my browser yesterday morning and pulled up cnn.com. It’s sort of part of my morning routine. Get a cup of coffee. Open the MacBook. Scan my RSS feeds. Check the news. You get the picture.

Yesterday’s headline was the very public quarrel between conservative Christian leader James Dobson of Focus on the Family and presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.

The issue? Biblical interpretation. Specifically, Dobson took Obama to task for a 2006 speech delivered at Call to Renewal, a gathering of progressive/liberal Christians. Read the text of the speech here.

The original CNN piece is here.

I’m going to go out on a limb (not really) and say that if you’re the sort of person who’s interested in Following Christ 2008, you’re probably also interested in being a redeeming influence in culture. Right? You’re probably also someone who spends most of your life in a that highly pluralistic environment known as the university.

So the issue raised in this little (and very public) tiff is actually quite germane to your life.

I don’t want to get into the specifics of the quarrel, you can read the CNN piece for that. I do want to consider one of Obama’s assertions. It just so happens that it is one that Dobson took issue with, but never mind.

Democracy demands that the religiously motivated translate their concerns into universal, rather than religion-specific, values. It requires that their proposals be subject to argument, and amenable to reason. I may be opposed to abortion for religious reasons, but if I seek to pass a law banning the practice, I cannot simply point to the teachings of my church or evoke God’s will. I have to explain why abortion violates some principle that is accessible to people of all faiths, including those with no faith at all.

- Barack Obama, Keynote Address, Call to Renewal.

I believe that Obama is right.

Christians have for centuries believed that there exist not only the (specific) revelation of Scripture, but general revelation in nature and reason. This general revelation could also be called Natural Law. As a result, it is possible to converse with those outside of the Christian faith on the basis of first things, moral principles that are knowable outside of Scripture. This means that we can discuss policies from a Christian perspective without using explicitly Christian language.

It doesn’t mean (and I don’t think Obama suggests) that Christians/the Church should abandon reflection on Scripture as a basis for views on all sorts of issues. After all, it is not only our “religious selves” that are Christ’s, we are Christ’s in our entirety (whole persons).

Religion seems like its going to be an issue in this election, but not as it was in 2000 and 2004. We’ve already seen a battle over the “reverends,” both with Obama (Wright and Pfleger) and McCain (Hagee and Parsley). Who knows what else we see before November.

For other interesting discussion see Erin Manning’s response to Jim Wallis’s response to Jim Dobson at Crunchy Con.

A couple of hours ago I was writing a tweet about almost being hit by a Toyota Langcruiser (the irony) while riding my bike through a parking lot when I noticed one by FC08. Check it out here. It’s a friday afternoon and I’ve got a couple of things to tie up before calling it a day, so it seemed like a perfect time to follow that URL down an electronic rabbit trail.

It led me to Cooling Creation, a site dedicated to offering concrete actions we can all do to lower our impact on the environment. Just click on the appropriate box and you’ll be guided through a series of options you can take to reducing your carbon footprint: drive fewer miles; ride a bike more; buy an energy efficient fridge; kill your SUV. The site then emails them to you so that you don’t conveniently forget later on when you need a cup of coffee from Starbucks and the 95 degree temperature makes $4/gal gas seem reasonable, if it means you can stay in air-conditioning a little longer.

It also gives you the option of making a tax-deductible contribution of $99 to essentially offset the cost of your carbon usage. I’m not really sure what this actually means so before I even think about whipping out the old Visa checkcard, I’m going to do some research.

I’m willing to drive less, ride my bike more, and even to get a smaller car (if I can afford it), but despite my concern for the environment I’m not quite at the place where I can give some random website $99 to atone for my carbon usage, even the carbon usage coming from my use of a print Bible. I’m serious.

As promised, here’s a link to the Colbert Report which, among other things, featured Bishop Tom Wright talking about his book Surprised by Hope.

I have to admit, I find Stephen Colbert funny about a third of the time and tiresome for the rest especially when he’s dealing with serious stuff (like Biblical theology in the case of Wright and science in the case of Francis Collins). Satire has its limits.

Readers of this blog know that Tom Wright and I go way back. Well, actually, that’s not true at all. But that’s beside the point.

Mike Morrell at Zoecarnate let me know that Bp Wright will be on the Colbert Report tomorrow night (June 19). I believe he’s talking about the issue of resurrection.

Stay tuned for footage and insightful commentary ;-)

Brian Moss is going to be leading worship at FC08. That’s something that really excites me!!

I first heard Brian lead worship at the Open for Business track of Urbana 06. A little over a year later, Brian led worship at the National Staff Conference for InterVarsity’s Graduate & Faculty Ministries (that’s who I work for).

Leading worship is more art than it is science. It requires, at least in my opinion, a humble reliance upon the Holy Spirit. And more than that, it requires the musician to be willing to metaphorically step aside and allow those present to look beyond into the face of God. Brian is able to do this.

Brian’s also a pretty thoughtful guy. I like that, especially in a worship leader. Brian has a blog. Recently he wrote a thoughtful piece about how we approach art and how that affects the way we approach worship.

Has there ever been a generation with so little time actually to take time and enjoy the world?

–Bauckham and Hart, Hope Against Hope.

Brian uses the quote above to help us think about how we worship. He writes,

“The questions they [Bauckham and Hart] ask reveal the close connection that exists between all of our lives and the making and receiving of art. If anyone is to appreciate or even begin to understand art they must slow down. Try as you might, you cannot read Gerard Manley Hopkins quickly.”

So, how do you worship? It’s a provocative question. One that becomes increasingly so the more we let it settle within us.

Are we rushed as we worship? Is the sense of chronological time ever with us? In our world, it takes a lot of effort to remove ourselves from our society’s default way of life: busyness. It can be nearly impossible to step outside of these patterns to a sense of timelessness in worship, especially when our churches tend to mirror society in the way we design worship services.

Brian’s post challenged me to something more. I hope it challenges you too.

One of the amazing things about Following Christ conferences (and there are, let’s face it, a ton of amazing things) is that it is animated by worship. At its most essential level, FC08 is worship. Of course, its more than that, but its not less. Everything we do, regardless of its intellectual complexity or profundity, is an expression of worship through the offering of our selves, our callings, and our gifts to God.

That’s pretty darn exciting.

Ok. Its time for an admission on my part. You probably know that NT Wright is going to be one of the major speakers at Following Christ 08. He’s done it before so don’t worry, he knows what he’s doing…here’s the evidence (the book that came out of his previous appearance).

And you probably know that Wright is sort of a looming presence in the world of New Testament studies. He swings some major lumber (as in every book he publishes is a hit with market, not always the same one however).

Well, back in 2001, I was roaming around the site of ancient Corinth (as in, Greece) with some colleagues studying in the UK. Imagine the scene. I leave the archeological site and walk to a nearby cafe for some lunch. I’m eating like a grad student: bread, cheese, apples, water.

I saunter into the cafe and there stands this bearded English guy wearing a Panama Jack hat (exhibit A). Disclosure: the photo is not actually of NT Wright, but you get the point.

Yup. Its NT. I was in Corinth with NT Wright and missed the chance to hang out with him and his film crew, all because I didn’t actually know what he looked like. Ugh. A friend knew who he was but by the time I found out, it would have been totally awkward to go over and start up a conversation. And I’m not really sure what I would have said. “Do you come here much?” “Its kind of run down, don’t you think?”

If you’re coming to FC08 you’ll have the chance to learn from Tom Wright and some other very cool and intellectually-stimulating folks.

Here’s an interview with Wright by Becky Garrison of the Wittenburg Door. Becky covers some major theological ground with old NT. I think he might have had a headache at the end.

Here’s a highlight, Wright on the purpose of the Bible:

The Bible is here to equip God’s people to carry forward His purposes of new covenant and new creation. It is there to enable people to work for justice, to sustain their spirituality as they do so, to create and enhance relationships at every level, and to produce that new creation which will have something of the beauty of God himself. The Bible isn’t like an accurate description of how a car is made. It’s more like the mechanic who helps you fix it, the garage attendant who refuels it, and the guide who tells you how to get where you’re going. And where you’re going is to make God’s new creation happen in his world, not simply to find your own way unscathed through the old creation.

I dig it.

Will Francis Collins be the only Christian in hell? Stephen Colbert thinks so, sort of. Here’s a clip (two actually) from the Colbert Report:

Collins will be a featured speaker at Following Christ 08. He is currently the head of the Human Genome project, a position he will step down from in August. He is best known among evangelical Christians for his recent book, The Language of God, which seeks to bridge the perceived gap between science and Christian faith.

As you can tell from these clips, Collins has is good humored and pretty wise. A combination that we think will help him be a huge contributor to the conference.

Back in April I wrote a post entitled, “Why Read?” I had been listening to Thomas Friedman making the argument that ours in a “search culture.” We don’t read so much as search out information. This, he noted, is a result of the development of new communication media like the internet which is infinitely searchable.

Inherent in Friedman’s observation is a profound alteration. We are not only changing what we read, we are changinghow we read. Or rather, we are being changed. That is the thesis of Nicholas Carr’s article, “Is Google Making us Stupid Stoopid?”

Writes Carr,

“My mind isn’t going - so far as I can tell - but it’s changing….Immersing myself in a book or lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. My concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle.”

Is the internet changing the way we read? It seems that it is. It is also changing the amount we read. Americans are reading more in 2008 than they read in the 1970s and 1980s. This is largely due to the growing use of email, text messages, and the internet. These are reading-based means of communication as opposed to visual means of communication, like television, which defined pop culture of the 1970s and 1980s. While we may conclude that Americans are reading more in 2008 than ever before, we cannot conclude that we are reading better.

Let’s assume that the way we read is changing. Since my own experience seems eerily similar to Carr’s, I’m a believer. A couple of days after the birth of our son on April 29, my Apple iBook G4 died and I entered a technological detox program. I was basically without a laptop for about a month (two weeks voluntarily, two weeks involuntarily). During that time I realized how much time I wasted each day simply “following links,” reading blogs, and sending emails. I also noticed how few books I had read over the last semester and how easily I was distracted when I tried to read. I had already decided that technology was the culprit and (before this) had blogged about it elsewhere. The inevitable next question is: so what?

As compelling an answer to this question as I have read comes from Tufts developmental psychologist Maryanne Wolf author of Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain.

We are not only whatwe read, we are how we read,” notes Wolf. The internet promotes a type of reading that places a premium on “efficiency” and “immediacy.” We become, “mere decoders of information.” Carr ponders whether in so doing we are losing our ability to do the deep and sustained reading that emerged with the invention of the printing press.

As evidence of the influence that technology exercises over reading and composition, Carr offers the German philosophy Friedrich Nietzsche. At some point in 1882 Nietzsche purchased and began to use a typewriter. His eyesight was failing and focusing on a page induced headaches that essentially made it impossible to write.

In correspondence between Nietzsche and a friend (a composer), his correspondent notes that Nietzsche’s writing had changed to become more terse. In reply the philosopher concedes, “You are right, our writing equipment takes part in the forming of our thoughts.” The shift from longhand to typewriter altered the way in which Nietzsche wrote. We may well ponder how email and the internet are affecting our communication.

The fundamental question is whether reading is information gathering, contemplation, or a little bit of both at varying times.

The technician (like Google’s Sergey Brin and Larry Page) see reading as accessing little stacks of information. Reading can be reduced to an algorithm. As a result, Google seeks industrial efficiency in taking people to the data they need (the right quote, the perfect figure, the exact illustration) by liberating it from the bulky construct called a book of which it typically is a part.

Artists (like playwright Richard Foreman) see reading as a participation in a grand tradition, a participation in the large tradition of which we are part. Lose this and we risk being flattened into “pancake people,” more robot than homo sapiens.

Question: The Christian faith is rooted in the story of God’s redemptive work among His people contained in the Bible. How might this trend adversely affect the reading of Scripture among the community of faith? Will the Church be one of the custodians of the “old reading” in the new wired age?

The professional economist is not really trained to answer, or even ask himself questions about absolute values. The economist is inside the squirrel cage and turning with it. Any question about absolute values belongs to the sphere, not of economics, but of religion.

-Dorothy L. Sayers, “Why Work?” in Creed or Chaos?

In her essay quoted above, Dorothy L. Sayers expressed regret over the undue influence held by economists in her day. There is, she claimed, something inherently unChristian about allowing economic criteria to be the sole (or absolute) means for deciding moral questions. Surely economists can tell us whether or not a given policy will have the desired effect, but they cannot tell us whether or not a given policy is morally right or wrong. Economics is descriptive and not normative. It tells us what is rather than what ought to be.

In their descriptive function, however, economists can dish out some interesting data. Consider an example published by Radha Iyegar and Jonathan Monten of Harvard University. The paper is entitled, “Is There an ‘Emboldenment’ Effect? Evidence from the Insurgency in Iraq.” Read the study here. It deals with the hot-button issue of terrorism. Specifically, whether or not talk of withdrawing from Iraq emboldens the enemy.

If you’re like me, you’ve listened to the rhetoric of both the White House and its critics and found both to be rather lacking. There have been many assertions since March 20, 2003. Many defended the war and some, even early on, criticized it. The unfortunate nature of political discourse in our country (i.e., through the medium of sound bytes) means that many assertions were effectively made in a vacuum. No data-specific rationale was given. Data, it seems, has been relegated to CSPAN.

However, two Harvard researchers have shown that the Iraqi insurgency acts in a rational manner in the timing and intensity of its offensive action on the battlefield. Specifically, they found incidents of insurgent violence increase by 7-10 per cent in periods following “intensified criticism of the Iraq War by the American public and in the U.S. media.” The effect diminished relatively quickly with violence returning to pre-spike levels within a period of one month.

The researchers concluded that the actions of the insurgents were a “systematic response” to a perceived opportunity to tip the weight of public opinion in the U.S. toward immediate withdrawal.

The Bush administration, and other supporters of the war, have long maintained that criticism of the war “emboldens” terrorist. The data suggest that they may well have a point. It seems then that the next five months may well be very difficult for U.S. and coalition troops in Iraq as we anticipate November’s presidential election which is, among other things, a referendum on the Iraq War.

All things considered, it is still both right and prudent to engage in a spirited discussion of both the morality and the practicality of the Iraq War. After all, reports of weakness in one’s enemy always serve to embolden.

Question: What role should economic realities play in Christian political thought?

Many readers of this blog, and much of the Following Christ 08 community, are students in doctoral programs hoping to go on to teach in universities and colleges here and abroad.

As grad students you’re already a significant part of the fabric of the university (as an
institution and community) and that will continue (and only heighten) when you get your first position as an assistant professor or instructor. As part of the university, it’s important to ask critical questions about the institution and about higher education in the United States, in general. In fact, InterVarsity is a university movement so we’re interested in asking the same questions too.

The latest edition (June 2008) of The Atlantic features an interesting and provocative article by an anonymous writer.

Professor X is an adjunct instructor of English at two institutions: a small private college and a community college. These institutions are “colleges of last resort.” In fact, they’re colleges for people who never really wanted to go to college in the first place. There are new high school graduates aiming for the police force who need some college credit to get into the academy. Some students are women who have returned to education after a twenty-year hiatus as raising the kids. Suffice it to say, there are no “organization kids”.

At first glance this might seem positive. Education is generally agreed to be a good thing that opens opportunities for those who pursue it. However, the reality, at least in this one classroom, is that these students are not making it. They are failing English 101 and 102, if not once, multiple times. Writes X, “…some will never pass, because they cannot write a coherent sentence.” They are in an educational system that is, in some ways, taking advantage of them.

This reality prompts Professor X to question the purpose of post-secondary education as it exists today. Routinely failing nine out of fifteen students in his classes, X wonders when he will be confronted by his department chair. It never comes.

“They don’t mention all those students and I don’t bring them up. There seems, as if often the case in colleges, to be a huge gulf between academia and reality. No one is thinking about the larger implications, let alone the morality, of admitting so many students to classes they cannot possibly pass. The colleges and the students and I are bobbing up and down in a great wave of societal forces–social optimism on a large scale, the sense of college as both a universal right and a need, financial necessity on the part of the colleges and the students alike, the desire to maintain high academic standards while admitting marginal students–that have coalesced into a tsunami of difficulty. No one has drawn up the flowchart and seen that, although more-widespread college admission is a bonanza for the colleges and nice for the students and makes the entire United States of America feel rather pleased with itself, there is one point of irreconcilable conflict in the system, and that is the moment when the adjunct professor, who by the nature of his job teaches the worst students, must ink the F on that first writing assignment.”

Non-traditional education is one of the ways colleges increase their income. Evening classes maximize the use of college facilities and adjunct professors/instructors are cheap labor. In economic terms it seems like a slam dunk for the university. However, just because something is economically efficient doesn’t make it right or make it tend toward the flourishing of those members of the community involved.

In short, Professor X has started to question the ideal of a B.A. or B.S. for everyone. What about a vocational track? Why send everyone to college? It might sound, “harsh and classist and British,” but since when does everyone need a college education? And doesn’t the fact that everyone gets one necessarily dilute its meaning? How many people go into professions with solely an undergraduate degree anymore?

Most of us probably don’t think about this a whole lot. After all, we study or work in elite universities. However, when yours is the red pen that causes the American dream to crash and burn, you might.