JOLLYBLOGGER

Josh and Gregg Harris on Education

I can't tell you how much I appreciate the things Josh Harris is saying these days about education options.   Josh has a post with video on Gospel Unity Among Educational Camps and today he posted a comment from his dad, Gregg, on the subject.  Here's the comment from Gregg Harris:

Hey Josh, this is your dad. Just for the record, I heartily agree with what you have said so well in this video clip. Educational choices have always been a matter of parental responsibility, not of some extra-biblical standard. Every householder should make an informed decision before God. All should research their local schools, public and private and become fully convinced in the way in which he (or she) decides to use his God-given liberty under the Lordship of Christ to bear the best and most abundant fruit he can for the glory of God.

The only moral issue at stake is whether we are willing to walk in the obedience of our faith in God and His will as we understand it from the Scriptures. Though wisdom and foolishness are called into play, there is no moral superiority to be found in any one educational option. Though dilligence is required of all three options, only our labor in Christ will not be in vain. Then, as the relative fruit of each option is put on display in time, may we all be humble enough to change our ways as needed in order to bear even better fruit for God.

Not all options seem to be equally fruitful thus far. But as a long-time home-schooling father and Christian home-schooling advocate I can honestly say that every option, including home schooling has its problems (as you well know). So, pick your problems, and by the grace of God deal with those problems as they arise. Our family has chosen the problems that come with home schooling. But, as you have said, we pray for all of our fellow parents and their children that God will mercifully bless their efforts to be faithful. We are all one in the body of Christ and that should allow us to support one another wholeheartedly in spite of our differing convictions on how to educate our children. Good job, Josh. I am so pleased with you and your service as a father, a pastor and just as my son. I love you. - Dad

Those who are familiar with the history of the homeschooling movement in the U.S. may remember that Gregg Harris was one of the early and most influential movers and shakers in the movement.  When I was in college, 25 years ago (wow, time flies) I was listening to Gregg Harris tapes and going to hear him speak.  I was in a community that was deeply committed to homeschooling so even in college I was preparing to homeschool.  And Gregg was the man.

As time went on, I gravitated toward a "home-school-is-the-only-educational-option-for-a-real-Christian" crowd and I became quite the, . . . um, . . . well, . . . unpleasant and unlikeable person about it.  Over the years I softened.  We homeschooled and found out there were huge challenges and difficulties with it.  Also, working in youth ministry I got to see that some of the most mature and spiritually healthy kids came out of a public schooling environment and some very dysfunctional kids came from homeschool environments.  At the same time I saw the reverse - some very mature and socially well adjusted homeschool kids, which countered the conventional wisdom that homeschool kids are socially inept.  I also saw plenty of public school kids who fell into all of the things the homeschoolers feared.

Overall, I began to see that there was far more to this whole thing than what school you sent your kids to.  My old pastor and mentor, Rod Whited, had a stump speech about education that he gave to everyone that went like this:

God has given parents the responsibility of educating their children.  Some will choose to fulfill this through homeschooling, some through public schooling, and some through private or private Christian schooling.  We will support these parents in whatever they choose.

This is what Gregg and Josh are saying here and I do so appreciate their stance for gospel unity in these matters.

Explain this Theologically and Practically

Kottke has an interesting story about the City Cafe Bakery in Ontario which lets customers add up their own bills and put the money into a box and make their own change.

"I liked the idea of simplifying things and ... the honour system made a whole lot of sense," Bergen says. "What irritated me about going into Tim Hortons, for example, was waiting in line for something as simple as getting a donut and a coffee. So the thought was, someone can pour his own coffee, grab his own bagel, cut it himself, throw the money in, and walk out. We don't touch 60 per cent of the transaction."

"Everything is rounded off to the nearest quarter with taxes included where applicable," he says. "So every desert is $1.50 (tarts, brownies, and date squares), every pizza lunch is $5, every beverage is $1.25, every loaf of bread is $2.75 (Italian sourdough, multi-grain, and raisin bread on weekends), croissants are $1 each, and bagels are three for $2 (plain, sesame, and multi-grain)."

The bakery conducts audits every six months and Bergen says only once did things come up short.

"Our theory is that two per cent of our sales are being ripped off. 'Ripped off' in the sense that there are people who forget to pay or they make a mistake in paying, and then there are people who deliberately don't pay. And every so often we have to kick somebody out that we know hasn't been paying," he says. "But at the same time we figure we're being overpaid by three per cent. Some people come in and want a $2.75 loaf of bread, but they see we're busy so they throw $3 in and walk out. Or, although we discourage tips, some people still give them to us. But because the staff is paid well (the average wage is $15.50 an hour), the tips go into the general pot."

In other words, the honor system basically works in this situation.  So how do we explain this theologically?  If "total depravity" is the fundamental defining mark of humanity then this shouldn't happen.  If "innocence" is the fundamental defining mark of humanity then this also couldn't happen because it wouldn't explain those who do rip the store off. 

In my mind the theological explanation should go something like this - this shows the glory and depravity of man.  Man is made in the image of God but because of sin has become totally depraved.  The "image" leads to altruism, the depravity leads to theft. 

But in this case altruism wins, the image wins - not without a fight - but altruism and the image wins.  The altruists overcompensate for the thieves and the bakery profits.

I have a few more thoughts after the jump.    

Regret in Heaven?

I'm gonna have to go with Phil Gons over John Piper on the issue of regret in heaven.  Discussing the second chapter of Piper's book Life as a Vapor, Gons says:

Piper reasons that since we will spend eternity praising Christ for ransoming us (e.g., Rev 5:9), we’ll certainly remember our sinful condition from which we’ve been ransomed. And those memories will yield feelings of regret.

It is inconceivable to me that we will remember our sin for what it really was, and the suffering of Christ for what it really was, and not feel regretful joy. . . . It does mean that regret will not ruin heaven. There will be kinds of joys, and complexities of happiness, and combinations of emotions in heaven of which we have never dreamed. (20)

Piper feels some tension leading him to speak in terms of “regretful joy.” He addresses Revelation 21:4, but concludes that he doesn’t think that it “rules out tears of joy” or “regretful joy.”

With all proper deference to John Piper, who is one of the great saints of our age, I have to agree with Phil when he says:

I’m having trouble being convinced. Regret is defined as “a feeling of sorrow, repentance, or disappointment” (Concise OED), “a sense of repentance, guilt, or sorrow, as over some wrong done or an unfulfilled ambition” or “a sense of loss or grief” (Collins English Dictionary), and “sorrow aroused by circumstances beyond one’s control or power to repair” or “an expression of distressing emotion (as sorrow or disappointment)” (Merriam-Webster’s).

Revelation 21:4 speaks of the permanent removal of mourning (πένθος), crying (κραυγὴ), and pain (πόνος). BDAG defines πένθος as “sorrow as experience or expression, grief, sadness, mourning” (795), κραυγὴ as  “outcry in grief or anxiety, wailing, crying” (565), and πόνος as “experience of great trouble, pain, distress, affliction” (852). It’s clear from a passage like Isaiah 65:14 that πόνος can refer to emotional pain (πόνον τῆς καρδίας) as well.

I struggle to see how the elimination of these leaves room for genuine regret (i.e., sorrow, disappointment, grief, guilt, distress). But since Piper never defines regret or “joyful regret,” it’s hard for me to know exactly what he has in mind. I’m really having a difficult time getting my mind around the concept of “joyful regret.” And if our praise of Christ for His work of ransoming us will be unceasing, and that praise requires that we remember our sin, then it would seem that our regret would be as constant as our praise.

Is it even right for believers to feel regret when recalling past sin?

I think one of the determinative passages on this is Jeremiah 31:34:

“People will no longer need to teach their neighbors and relatives to know me. For all of them, from the least important to the most important, will know me,” says the Lord. “For I will forgive their sin and will no longer call to mind the wrong they have done.”

If regret involves remembrance of past sin, and if God commits to not remembering our past sin, then how can we remember (regretfully) our past sin?

That last question that I quoted by Gons is one that I have given some thought to - aside from and before the question of regret for sin in the eternal state, should believers even feel regret for past sin while on this earth?

I will say that I am surprised at the determination of many I meet to live with a sense of guilt.  I meet many Christians who are fully committed (or as my friend Glenn Lucke says, they are "all in") to hanging on to guilt.  No amount of teaching or persuasion regarding the merits of Christ's work can convince them that they are free from guilt.  True, they may accept and be thankful that they are free from legal guilt, but experiential guilt is something they believe they must hang on to.

John MacArthur once said that the process of sanctification is the process of making our practice match our position.  In other words, we are positionally righteous before God, so we ought to make it our ambition to be practically righteous.  We understand that, because of indwelling sin, we won't do it perfectly in this life, but we still seek it.

Doesn't the same go for guilt?  We are positionally free from guilt because of the work of Christ.  Shouldn't we treat "experiential guilt" as an enemy the same as the other things for which the death of Christ paid the penalty?

Rolling Stone Goes Undercover with the Christian Fringe

I've been wanting to comment on the "Jesus Made Me Puke" story from Rolling Stone.  Fortunately, I don't have to because the blogosphere's two top Jared's have done my work for me and done a better job than I could have done.

In the latest of a burgeoning sub-genre of journalism called "undercover with the Christian right," Rolling Stone sent their man to get the scoop on one megachurch that is "representative" of the rest of evangelical Christianity.  Lo and behold, this reporter found a plethora of weirdness.

Jared Bridges rightly points out where the Rolling Stone reporter went wrong, but he acknowledges that the guy (unfortunately for evangelicals) got some things right.

When a writer for Rolling Stone can recognize that your preaching is more pop-psychology than biblical truth, you’re in trouble. Sadly, much of the evangelical landscape shares this wholesale adoption of talk-show therapy. It’s a practice the Apostle Paul might well refer to as conformity to the world.

Jared Wilson points out how the Rolling Stone writer rightly points out the troublesome privileging of jock culture in evangelical circles:

Some quotes, some thoughts . . .

One of the implicit promises of the church is that following its program will restore to you your vigor, confidence and assertiveness, effecting, among other things, a marked and obvious physical transformation from crippled lost soul to hearty vessel of God. That's one of the reasons that it's so important for the pastors to look healthy, lusty and lustrous — they're appearing as the "after" photo in the ongoing advertisement for the church wellness cure.

I found that observation really interesting, and generally true. Taibbi spends some time on the import of the macho, coulda-beena-contenda military/sportsman leaders, and it's an interesting perspective. As a guy who grew up in a youth ministry culture that propped up all manner of Christian ex-athletes, I always wondered if our youth ministers even cared that they were implicitly favoring jock culture with these endorsements, that many (most?) kids don't care that Jesus helped third string quaterback Brock Throwmeister get over losing that big game that one time.

My two comments are that unfortunately, some of what the article says is right and unfortunately, with this being John Hagee's church, it is representative of a significant minority in evangelicaldom.

My second comments is that Hagee, his followers and their ilk are still a minority in evangelicaldom and this article once again proves the prescience of James Davidson Hunter in his epochal work - Culture Wars.  Hunter points out that the culture wars are, by and large, fought by extremists on both sides, or I should say it is the extremists who get noticed by the press.  While it is true that not all who take a side are extremists, it is equally true that only the extremists get noticed by the press.

I wish these folks would send an undercover journalist to follow the folks at one of the ordinary, run of the mill, smallish churches of America, like mine.  And I wish they would follow the folks for a few days in their normal everyday lives.  What they would find is that most evangelical Christendom is made up of ordinary people, living ordinary lives, doing their best and trying to please God in the midst of it.  I have no doubt a reporter would probably uncover some sin and some greatness, but for the most part he wouldn't uncover much weirdness.  Then again, I guess such a story would probably be too boring to sell.

The Gospel in Ephesians 2

I'm preaching on Ephesians 3:14-21 - Paul's great prayer - this weekend.  Verse 14 begins with the words "for this reason," which tells you that what follows is predicated on what came before.  However, when you look at what came before you see the same Greek word in 3:1 that is also translated "for this reason" in the NIV.  This lets you know that, to understand the rationale behind what is said in those two sections (3:1-13 and 3:14-21) you need to look back into chapter 2. 

Without going into too much detail here I'll just say that Ephesians 2 gives a great description of the gospel.  And I thought I would share a few of my notes on this one for your review and study.

Here's a quick gospel outline from Ephesians 2

1. The Gift and Implications of Salvation - Ephesians 2:1-10

a. Our sin - Ephesians 2:1-3

1). Sinful nature - verse 1 (dead in trespasses and sins)

2). Sinful practice - verses 2-3 (followed the ways of this world, etc.)

3). Penalties of sin (children of wrath v. 3 - see also vv. 11-12 - exclusion from covenants of promise,without hope and without God in the world.

b. The remedy for our sin - Ephesians 2:4-10

1). The remedy for our sinful nature - verses 4-8 (made alive with Christ) - by implication this is contingent on the cross and resurrection).

2). The remedy for our sinful practice - verse 10 (created in Christ Jesus to do good works).

3). The remedy for the penalties of sin - verse 6 (seated in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, see also verse 13 - "brought near").

2. The Benefits of Salvation - Ephesians 2:11-22

a. Brought into citizenship in Israel, i.e. the kingdom of God - 2:13-20

b. And thereby heirs of the covenants of promise - verse 13

Excursus - what are the covenants of promise?  These are the promises to Abraham in Genesis 12:1-3, Genesis 15:4-7 and Genesis 17:3-8.  A quick summary of these promises:

1). A kingdom - Abraham promised to be the father of nations, the father of kings, we are members of the royal family in this kingdom.

2). A family - Abraham promised a seed, offspring - we are his offspring, we have a new family relationship.

3). A land - Abraham was promised the land of Canaan which Jesus expands to include the whole earth - we are the inheritors of a new heaven and new earth for eternity.

4). A mission - to be a blessing to all the people of the earth.

I found this helpful and expansive in thinking about the gospel.  Sin is defined more broadly than mere action - it is our nature.  The work of Christ pays not only the penalty but crushes the power of sin, thus it has day to day relevance to Christian practice.  And the benefits of the gospel are so much more than just forgiveness of sin or eternal life.

It might also be a useful discussion to ask if being "on mission" is an inherent result of believing the gospel.  In other words we understand that being a member of the people of God is a necessary result of believing the gospel, having eternal life is a necessary result of believing the gospel, so wouldn't "being a blessing" to the nations be a necessary result also?

(And let me offer a commercial here - I mentioned a few days ago about my new found love for Logos software as a result of going to Camp Logos.  I don't claim that any of what I just shared is earth-shattering, just hopefully helpful - but Logos has some pretty cool syntax analysis tools which are helping me see connections and relationships in passages I didn't see before, and some of that has come into play here).

So where is the most "strategic" place to live?

But before you go any further in this post let's get something straight - I am not necessarily disagreeing with Tim Keller, or Hugh Hewitt, or Os Guinness or Rodney Stark or other people like that who have pointed out the vital importance of taking the gospel to the power centers of our world.  I might be disagreeing, but then again I might not . . . I'm just saying.

As we were discussing these guys all have a point - it can be fairly easily shown that the apostle Paul took the gospel to the great city centers of the ancient world.  This turned out to be good strategery, because as the gospel captured the cities it filtered out to the countryside.

Still, you have to admit that Will Willimon has a point.  Now again, I'm not trying to start something here, and don't hold it against him that he's a methodist (shh!) and please don't tell the folks at presbytery that I am having cyber-fellowship with a guy who's an arminian, maybe even a wesleyan-arminian - but he kinda makes sense when he says:

One might have thought that Jesus would do something effective.  If you want to have maximum results, don't waste your time talking to the first person whom you meet on the street, figure out a way to get to the movers and the shakers, the influential and the newsmakers, those who have some power and prestige.  If you really want to promote change, go to the top . . .

But Jesus?  He didn't go up to the palace, the White House, the Kremlin, or Downing Street.   (Jesus never got on well with politicians.)  Jesus went outback, back to Galilee.

Why Galilee?   Nobody special lived in Galilee, nobody except the followers of Jesus.  Us.

The resurrected Christ comes back to, appears before the very same rag tag group of failures who so disappointed him, misunderstood him, forsook him and fled into the darkness.  He returns to his betrayers.  He returns to us.

Feeble attempts at humor notwithstanding - Willimon raises some issues worth pondering.  I do think that some of the best kingdom work being done today is being done in city-centers like New York and other places like it.  And I do buy the rationale of Keller and others who point to Paul's example for their emphasis on the city.  At the same time, the example of Jesus suggests we ought not to write off the potential of those out of the way places.

One of the interesting points of commonality between Willimon here and Keller and others is their decisive "non-power" orientation.  Willimon makes the point that Jesus didn't go for the power centers.  The same methodology works for Keller and the others in New York.  They are counter-cultural in that they live in the power-centers and refuse to make power-grabs.

Maybe the "strategic" issue is not so much the location where you live but the orientation by which you live wherever you live?

Thoughts anyone?

Just Reading the Bible, eh?

Stop me if you've heard this one before:

“My theology is simply what I read in the Bible.”

Sure it is.

“What I believe and practice is simply what the Bible teaches and nothing else.”

That's how Michael Spencer started this post, which deals with those who claim to read the bible as a blank slate, minus any presuppositions.  Michael also says this:

If I ever tell you that all I do is just read the Bible, then believe and do what it says, you have permission to laugh at me. Pay a small fee and you can smack me and say “What’s the matter with you?”

I’m an iceberg, an onion, a mystery. I’m complex and rarely insightful into myself. Thousands of experiences co-exist in me at the same time. I’m a library of presuppositions and passively accepted versions of the truth. When I write a post, preach a sermon, respond in a conversation or give advice to a student, I am anything but simple. I’m complex and only partially aware of that complexity.

This doesn’t mean I can’t understand the simple statements of the Bible or believe and act on them with integrity. It does mean that I need to stop talking about myself as if I am a blank slate, and begin accepting myself as a human being.

Michael rightly argues that those who say such things don't understand human nature.  I think we can go a few steps further and say that the bible itself gives us reason to believe that no one comes to the bible as a blank slate.

Here's a few biblical reasons why no one "just reads the bible."

1. The noetic effects of sin.

"Noetic" is a fancy word from the greek word "nous" which means "mind."  This means that sin affects our minds, thus our ability to comprehend truth is marred by sin.

2. The finiteness of man

Think of God as a big box full of stuff and man as a small box.  You can't get everything from the big box into the small box, the small box is simply not able to contain it.  Thus man's can't hold all truth.

3. The blur

I Corinthians 13:12 -  For now we see in a mirror indirectly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I have been fully known.

4. Perspectivalism

I'm borrowing this term from John Frame and am probably using it in ways he wouldn't.  But think of the gospels - the same story of the same Jesus told from four different perspectives.  We know that Jesus was one person who lived one life, yet this one life is recorded in four different ways, with each recording bearing the marks of the individual author.  These marks include personality, vocabulary, social/cultural setting and intended audience among others.

So if the process of writing scripture is influenced by the personal experience of the author, why should it surprise us if we insist that the understanding of Scripture is influenced by the experience of the reader?

This doesn't negate the truthfulness or trustworthiness of the Scripture in any way, but it does negate the pride of the "Scripture reader" who thinks he comes to the Scriptures with a blank slate and is thus more "pure" than the rest of us.

Camp Logos

Now as to where I've been these last several days and why I haven't been blogging.

Part of it is the same old stuff - life is busy and so on and so forth, yada, yada, yada.

But the good part of it is that I have been at Camp Logos.  What is Camp Logos you say?

Camp Logos is a program put on by a gentleman named Morris Proctor of Morris Proctor Seminars that teaches you how to use the Logos/Libronix Bible software.  I went to Camp 1 in Brooklyn, NY last week and am currently at Camp 2 in Philadelphia.  I can't come up with enough superlatives to describe how valuable this training has been and I can't say enough good about Morris, his wife Cindy and Morris's right hand man, Art.  The training I have received from them will pay off for years to come.

I have been using Logos and building a Logos library for over ten years now and have found it to be very helpful.  I do most of my sermon prep in Logos and a good deal of extra study.  But I doubt that I used 10% of it's capabilities.  I know this sounds like a paid commercial, but it's not - Morris has said, and I agree, that if you know how to use Logos software it will take you deeper into the bible than you have ever gone, and faster than you would believe.  Morris says that people get skeptical when he says this, but it is true.

In fact, Camp 1 was last Thursday and Friday.  During that camp I picked up a few tidbits which caused me to go back and re-write a good deal of my sermon this past Sunday, but I am glad I did - I preached on a familiar passage and was able to bring some things out of the text that I probably would have missed otherwise.  One of our long term members, who grew up in church as a pastor's son and who is very biblically and theologically astute told me he had never heard that particular passage opened up that way. 

So my Logos fanhood has kicked up several notches.  I strongly encourage anyone who studies the bible to get the Logos software, begin building a library, and then go to one of Morris Proctor's seminars as soon as possible.

End of commercial . . .

Dan Phillips on Accountability

I'm pretty nervous about anyone trying to "reign-in" bloggers or provide extra accountability.  I frequently hear the complaint that anyone with a computer can say anything they want and this is a real problem - there is no peer review in the blogosphere, there is no way of vetting posts and opinions.  So, from time to time there are questions about how we can best filter posts.

Maybe I've gotten too enamored with the whole democratization thing, but suggestions like the above seem to me to be the wrong road. I think Dan Phillips hits the nail on the head on this whole thing.  He says that accountability for bloggers ought to come from the normal church authorities and channels and he mentions that the very public nature of the blogosphere provides a built-in accountability.  And ultimately, the fear of God is the greatest source of accountability.  Here's a few pull quotes worthy of your consideration:

So I think it would be perfectly appropriate for a pastor to read his sheep's blogs insofar as he is able to do so, or at least to check on occasion to make sure that the blogger is representing Christ faithfully. After all, as I mean to develop in another post, blogging is indeed a stewardship with some attendant formidable responsibilities.

Blog, and everybody hears you — or at any rate everyone can. It is right out there in public, all of it, for God and everyone to see, analyze, fact-check, pick over, misrepresent, treasure, slander, repeat, steal, discuss, debate, and any other appropriate verb you might choose.

I know that any fair-minded reader can examine what I said, and decide for himself — up, down, or sideways.

And if they're not fair-minded? Oh well; wasn't going to win them anyway.

If I did in fact say something foolish and/or irresponsible and/or stupid, they can tell everyone. Everyone. On this blog, on their blog, on anyone's blog. Forever, until I die or am hounded off the scene in shame, known only as "Oh-yes-Dan-Phillips,-that-pinhead-who-____." . . . How's that for accountability?

And besides, ultimately, if the fear of God is insufficient motivation, then we have a problem not soluble by committee.

I couldn't agree more - read the whole thing.

Review of "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Shirky

In announcing the 2008 EO/Wheatstone Symposium Joe Carter asks bloggers to write an essay answering the question:

If the medium affects the message, how will the Christian message be affected by the new media?

While I am not writing this post to enter in the symposium (though I am still considering doing a separate one) the question is a good bridge to a review of Clay Shirky's book "Here Comes Everybody."

I first became aware of Mr. Shirky while looking for some responses to Andrew Keen's book The Cult of the Amateur, and found some of his writings at Many to Many.  And with that I have become aware of his blog of the same title as this book. and requested the opportunity to read and review the book.  So, many thanks to Mr. Shirky for giving me this chance.

Getting back to Joe's question, this book illustrates how the question of how the Christian message will be affected by the new media is simply a subset of the question of how any and all messages will be affected by the new media.  But it also shows that the new media is much bigger than a "message transmission" technology.

In one sense the "new media" of blogging, vlogging, podcasting, twittering, social networks and the like are much more than just "media," as we have come to think of it.  On the one hand it is the same because the new media still "mediates" information and in that sense it is like orality and writing.  On the other hand the new media does things that old media never did.

I Love This Planet!!

There is no apology for God's long silence, no word of consolation for Job in his distress.  But nor does God crush and humiliate him.  Instead, God takes him instead on a whirlwind tour of the universe.
Vinoth Rmachandra, quoted by Kelly Munroe Kullberg, Finding God Beyond Harvard, p. 111

Horton Hears a Who as Theology

Who knew that "Horton Hears a Who" is a great theological treatise?  Jerry Dodson that's who, here's a snippet of Jerry's, from me to you on hearing who's (yeah, yeah, Dr. Seuss is under no threat from me).

One of the main reasons that we don’t hear Jesus or recognize him, as god or as risen, is that our worldview won’t let us see or hear him. We have ruled out belief in things that we can’t see, hear or touch—like Jesus. This is precisely the belief of the Kangaroo in Horton Hears a Who, the Dr. Seuss book and movie. HHAW is a story about Horton the elephant who discovers that there is an entire world of mites that live on a spec, a spec which is on a flower that he carries. On occasion, when the mites are very loud and Horton is very quiet, he can hear the mayor of the mites. Horton is opposed by the Kangaroo who is the king of the jungle. She says that it is impossible for there to be a world of mites on the spec because she can’t hear them, see them, or touch them. Kangaroo assumes that her senses provide her with all the information she needs in order to make sense of her world.

But she has a problem. Her individual experience and knowledge can not account for everything in the entire jungle.

Review of Modern Parables DVD Curriculum

We in the church know that we are living in the electronic generation and that attention can be riveted to a television when it can't be caught by a speaker.  I saw this when I was in youth ministry.  Speakers were very rarely able to keep the attention of the kids, for any length of time.  We had adult volunteers who spent the better part of meetings giving kids dirty looks, telling them to shush and sometimes confronting them directly.

But, when we played a video, if it was a good video, there would be absolute silence.  No crowd control was necessary.  Well, that is, if it was a good video.  We could show clips from a secular movie for illustration purposes and the kids would be riveted.  On other videos they would at least give their attention for the first few minutes and give it a go.

The trouble is that most Christian films, and particularly educational films aren't very good.  And that's not only the case with kids.  In three churches I have seen that most people aren't all that thrilled about watching a video, even if it is by a well known or particularly good speaker.

Enter Modern Parables, a DVD teaching curriculum on the parables of Jesus.  It's a series of teaching on six parables of Jesus, with a dramatic story, a teaching video and a director's commentary.  A study guide is also included.

Now, I'm not saying these things were directed by Spielberg or Francis Ford Coppola, and it's not Meryl Streep and Anthony Hopkins doing the acting.  But the production values and acting is very good - way better than the standard Christian fare.  Each parable film is influenced by a well known director, like Orson Welles, Woody Allen, Frank Capra or Ingmar Bergman.

And the teaching is well done.  It is by several well known pastors (and I was glad to recognize three well-known PCA guys) who talk to you, not at you.  The teaching is thorough, it is Christ centered and frankly, well done.

I can enthusiastically recommend this series to any church group looking to use videos.  I think this is a step in the right direction for Christian educational videos.  I also think this can be used with just about any group, age high school and up.  I'm giving away a bias here, I think high schoolers can handle more "adult" curriculums with more strenuous exegetical and theological depth.  This series fits the bill and I do hope they come out with more very soon.

The DVD set is $129 but you can also download individual films digitally.  And, they have free low-res versions for the iPod.

More on Christians and Utilitarianism

As a follow-up to my last post on Christians and Utilitaranism I wanted to post to a few thoughts from Charlie Lehardy at Another Think that speak to this.  As a refresher, utilitarianism is an "ends-justifies the means" philosophy, and it is one that Christians often engage in during political disputes.  But we need to keep in mind that the Bible not only tells us that we must engage theological and political issues (as well as many others), but it tells us the manner in which we must engage.

Now, on to Charlie's comments:

Politics is fueled by discontent. In every election season, we Americans — the world's most prosperous and pampered people — take our complaints to the ballot box.

It's the nature of a democratic community that our collective unhappiness drives us to build something better. Like the oyster irritated by the grain of sand, all of human history has been a story of men and women working to smooth the edges of sharp stones.

Unhappiness can be good when it spurs us to action. But what if unhappiness becomes permanent? What if we are always discontented, always disappointed in the life we live, even when political fervor no longer prods us to see every cup as half-empty, or even bone dry?

And:

There is much we can legitimately complain about. But what are we grateful for? Where have we experienced God's mercy in our lives, and when was the last time we testified to his abundant grace, his overflowing goodness to us?

Are we somber, always obsessed with the many injustices we have suffered, or are we joyful, grateful for the unwarranted outpouring of God's blessing and mercy in our lives?

Is it possible that we are so caught up in our complaints that we have forgotten to testify to God's grace?

On the utilitarianism issue, Charlie's post got me to thinking of how, in the midst of politics debate, we can position ourselves as the "grace-ful" people of the earth.  If gratitude is to characterize us, how can this be shown in the midst of these debates?

Or, in another vein, if we are commanded to do all things without grumbling or complaining (Phil. 2:14), then what does this say about our manner of political engagement?

Or, if Charlie is correct that politics is fueled by discontent, what does this say about those of us who are to emulate Paul who had learned to be content in any and every situation (Phil 4:12)?  Are Christians allowed to be discontent?

Or, referencing my last post, one of the applications of David Gushee's concerns about utilitarianism is over ruthlessness in politics, or what appears to me to be "political victory via character assassination":

It elevates into positions of leadership and influence persons who gain power because they are effective practitioners of the dark arts of mortal combat rather than having more appropriate qualifications for their roles.

 

Can Christians engage in the ruthlessness and character assassination that seems to be part and parcel of political campaigns these days?

It seems to me that the whole utilitarianism issue goes pretty deep.

Christians and Utilitarianism

In what I'd call a "must-read" post, David Gushee discusses Christians and utilitarianism.  He applies the thoughts to the many ways that we practice an ends-justifies the means approach in theological and political debate.  Here's a few excerpts to whet your appetite:

The moral philosopher in me sees in all of these issues the means-vs.-ends problem in ethics. Is it morally permissible to employ any and all means to accomplish a goal one considers worthy? Do the ends, in fact, justify the means? Or are there moral rules or principles that set limits on what we might do even to accomplish laudable ends?

Those who define what is moral primarily by the goals or consequences of an action are called utilitarians. Few Christian ethicists formally embrace utilitarianism because of its obvious problems, mainly its lack of binding moral rules governing actions in all circumstances. And yet especially in moments of stress and conflict, Christians are among those who are tempted to slide into utilitarianism. To win the denomination, win the campaign, or win the “war on terror,” we must do what is necessary, right?

And:

There are theological and not just philosophical issues raised by the utilitarian temptation. For Christians, most fundamental is our willingness to disobey the concrete teachings of Jesus Christ in order to pursue what we believe to be a righteous goal.

This amounts to the belief that we know better than Jesus the Incarnate God what pattern of behavior is the right one in the “real” world in which we live. And it suggests that we do not trust in the justice of God. We take matters into our own hands in order to determine the outcome in a way pleasing to us. In its starkest and most terrible form, we disobey God in order to do what we believe to be God’s will. Not even a philosopher can make that work.

On the Use of "Natural Language"

Here's a good follow-up to my post about the Holman Christian Standard Bible, whose translation theory is "optimal equivalence," and which majors on using natural, normal English. 

Wayne Leman discusses the importance of translating the bible into "natural English," which sounds strangely familiar to that old reformation era notion of a vernacular bible.  Wayne notes that the use of unnatural language can have a powerful rhetorical effect, such as President Kennedy's famous line "ask not what your country can do for you."  Wayne points out that it wouldn't have had the same rhetorical effect if it had begun "do not ask." 

But, Wayne points out that overuse of the unnatural can have some unintended, deleterious (how's that for an "unnatural" word?) effects, and that translators need to be careful to take pains to translate into the natural usage of the receptor language and use the unnatural when the text calls for a rhetorical effect.

Overuse of anything, food, sex, blogging (!), whatever, can desensitize us to its intended effect. Overuse of unnatural wordings for rhetorical effect desensitizes us and a desired effect is lost. If English Bibles are filled with unnatural wordings, readers get from those Bibles the wrong sense about the messages they are reading. Instead of being intellectually or emotionally or volitionally challenged by the unnatural, the unusual, the unique turn of phrase, we become too familiar with them if they are overused. And familiarity can not only breed the proverbial contempt, but it can also create within readers a sense that God is distant, he doesn't talk our language, he isn't really interested in incarnation. And that is exactly the wrong message we want to have connoted by Bible translations. God not only incarnated himself to bring salvation to mankind, but he also incarnated messages he wanted communicated to mankind through normal human languages.

For the most part the wordings in the original biblical language texts were natural in those languages. It is proper for our translations to be natural, as well, if we want them to communicate the same way to people today as God wanted the original texts to communicate to their audiences thousands of years ago. If there is a passage in the Bible which was intended to convey some special rhetorical effect, it is at that point that translators can look for English forms which might adequately convey that effect. One option might be some unnatural wording.

Milton Stanley points out that Wayne's words apply to preaching as well.

Al Hsu on D & D and Creating Culture

Hearkening back to this post, let's do another "who would win in a fight?"  Who would win in a fight between Gary Gygax of Dungeons and Dragons fame and Bill Gothard of The Institute in Basic Life Principles.

According to Al Hsu of The Suburban Christian we don't have to wonder - the fight was held and Gary Gygax won.

But as the New York Times article notes, D&D and the fantasy roleplaying motif has thoroughly permeated our collective consciousness:

We live in Gary Gygax’s world. The most popular books on earth are fantasy novels about wizards and magic swords. The most popular movies are about characters from superhero comic books. The most popular TV shows look like elaborate role-playing games: intricate, hidden-clue-laden science fiction stories connected to impossibly mathematical games that live both online and in the real world.

Rogers traces the ripple effects of D&D in influencing and shaping contemporary gaming culture, technology advances, and even Google and Facebook. He writes:

Mr. Gygax’s genius was to give players a way to inhabit the characters inside their games, rather than to merely command faceless hordes, as you did in, say, the board game Risk. Roll the dice and you generated a character who was quantified by personal attributes like strength or intelligence.

Al comments:

It occurs to me now that in the Gygax vs. Gothard smackdown, Gygax ultimately triumphed. Why? I think because whereas Gothard and other conservative Christians defensively attacked D&D out of fears of Satan worship, Gygax and D&D created an appealing world and fascinating narrative that people could enter into. It was participatory, and it also created community. Rogers notes, "You needed at least three people to play — two adventurers and one Dungeon Master to guide the game — so Dungeons & Dragons was social. Demented and sad, but social."

In short, Gygax created culture, whereas Gothard merely condemned culture. Gothard did not create a compelling alternative to D&D - he merely argued that it was evil. Whatever one might think about his perspective, the larger issue for Christians is whether we will create compelling, dramatic narratives and stories for people to participate in, or if we only react against what other people create. Andy Crouch's forthcoming Culture Making argues that Christians cannot change the culture by condemning it, critiquing it, copying it or consuming it. The only way to change culture is to create more culture.

I went to my first Gothard seminar in 1980 and was fully on board with the whole agenda.  D & D and pretty much all of pop culture was of the devil, rock music was of the devil (Amy Grant = bad, Sandi Patty = good) and so I understand where he is coming from.  I think another example that reinforces Al's point is the whole MTV thing.  Christians focused on demonizing MTV and didn't create an alternative (well, I suppose one could call the whole CCM thing an alternative of sorts) and yet MTV won the day.

It seems to me the same things are happening now with social networking and online worlds like Second Life.  Many Christians can talk eloquently about what's wrong with them, but few can provide compelling alternatives.

HT - Milton Stanley at Transforming Sermons

Technorati tags: religion, Christian, Christianity, role-playing games, rpg, D & D, Dungeons and Dragons, Dungeons & Dragons, Gary Gygaz, Bill Gothard, culture

Marshall McLuhan on Oral vs. Written Cultures

A few weeks ago I did a couple of posts arguing with Neil Postman's views on the superiority of a writing based culture to a graphic based culture (here and here).  One of the things I mentioned is that we are in the middle of a shift from a culture dominated by writing to a graphic dominated culture.  Postman and others lament this and there is indeed much to lament.  But, I did suggest in one of those posts that a little perspective is in order. With the advent of the printing press, the world changed from oral to written, and I suggested that there were probably some cultural "losses" in that transition.

Fortunately, I have come across some better minds than mine that have addressed these issues.  I just heard about Marshall McLuhan's book, "The Gutenberg Galaxy," which deals with that transition, and his own thoughts on the modern transition to an electronic culture. Needless to say this has gone straight to the top of my Amazon Wish List, and I found the Amazon reviews to be educational in and of themselves.

While you are waiting for the book to arrive, there are some good articles and posts that jump from a discussion of McLuhan's book to the larger issue of oral vs. written culture.  In an article called The Hidden Center of the "Gutenberg Galaxy" McLuhan and the Gutenberg Galaxy, Steve Mizrach offers some good background.  Plato is one who had many reservations about writing:

Most people are not aware, however, what writing had undone. Plato talks about how many rhetoricians used a technique known as the Art of Memory for facilitating their recall - a technique which seems to have involved projecting concepts or ideas into internally visualized architectural spaces, there to be later recalled. He laments how writing has made the once noble Art of Memory largely a forgotten art. Many cultures utilized an entirely oral tradition for maintaining their cultural sagas and mythos - the Druids had to study twenty years of wholly oral instruction. Even today, there are bards which remember and sing national epics and tales which are thousands of lines long. Plato may not have been the first one to notice that writing may have destroyed man's own prodigious mnemonic talents.

While acknowledging that people of the book have surpassed people of the icon, Mizrach points out the priority and superiority of the spoken word:

Nonetheless, for the various monotheistic religions, it is clear that the Logos or uttered word is prior to and superior to the written or recorded revelations of the Divine.

Goldsworthy and Keith Plummer on Biblical Theology

Keith Plummer has links to some lectures by Graeme Goldsworthy on Biblical Theology, which should be good and helpful.  Keith also has a good quote on why Biblical Theology is so important.

A friend in Christian education recently used an illustration that highlights the necessity of helping people grasp the Bible's big picture. "Too often," he said, "we're dropping students in the middle of the desert and having them analyze grains of sand but they have no idea where they are."

That's outstanding!

For my own modest contribution to the subject of this post, check out this list of links to online resources on biblical theology.

N. T. Wright on Preaching the Resurrection

As you prepare for Easter tomorrow here's a message I hope you will hear.  This is N. T. Wright on the resurrection:

To preach the Resurrection is to announce the fact that the world is a different place, and that we have to live in that "different-ness." The Resurrection is not just God doing a wacky miracle at one time. We have to preach it in a way that says this was the turning point in world history.

From Bob Hyatt at Pastor Hacks.

Interview about the Christian Standard Bible Translation

In a post I did a few days ago Dan Phillips was kind enough to call my attention to an interview at Anwoth blog with Dr. Ed Blum, general editor of the (Holman) Christian Standard Bible translation. It's a terrific interview filled with insight into the translation process of the CSB and insight into translation issues.  Here's a few highlights.

The CSB aimed for "optimal equivalence," hence we have a new translation methodology to add to the debates between formal and dynamic equivalence.

The CSB seems to use the most up to date English vocabulary in it's translation.

The CSB claims to be the only truly "new" translation in recent years.  Dr. Blum says that the NAS and ESV are basically revisions of the King James tradition.

As Dan pointed out, there is an interesting discussion in the interview about the translation of "monogenes" - which is commonly translated "only begotten."  The word "unique" or the phrase "one of a kind" is a better translation, but it's interesting to see why the CSB chose not to go with "unique."

Another interesting point is on the rationale for why, instead of "strong drink," they chose the word "beer."

Which is also interesting in light of the common view that this is the Southern Baptist bible. Not so, Dr. Blum himself is a Presbyterian and only about 1/3 of the translation committee was Southern Baptist.

All in all, a very informative interview.  I recommend it to you highly.

A Trip to Narnia

Narnia is coming to a museum near you (well, depending on how you define the word "near"), courtesy of the Becker, Group, Walt Disney Motion Pictures and Walden Media. An exhibit called "The Chronicles of Narnia: International Museum Exhibition" will start touring in June of 2008 and will hit at least 10 cities around the world in 5 years. Here's a description:

The 10,000-square-foot educational exhibit will appear at internationally renowned museums and learning institutions in a minimum of 10 cities around the world over a five-year span, escorting guests of all ages on a tour of myth, magic and adventure that so embodied Lewis's fantasy world. Incorporating the movies' original props with newly created interactive elements, "The Chronicles of Narnia: International Museum Exhibition" will allow visitors to enter three-dimensional settings of both fantasy and reality, including a recreation of Lewis's personal study. Visitors will also be immersed in environments such as the famous attic and wardrobe that serve as the portal into the Narnia adventures. Once inside, guests will be transported into a wintry Narnia world complete with falling snow and cold wind, as seen in the series' first film, "The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe." The tour then continues through other spectacles from the series including the White Witch's ice palace, Cair Paravel, an actual trebuchet that was used as a catapulting weapon in medieval days, and additional sets and environments from the upcoming film, "The Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian."

Crazy Brit Sticks His Nose Into the Obama Situation

Those crazy Brits, I tell ya, they just can't let us colonists go, they're still trying to govern the yanks from afar.

But seriously folks . . . my good buddy Adrian of England has been following the whole Obama bruhaha and has some interesting thoughts on it.  The most important point he makes in that linked post is at the end - the most troubling issue in all of this is not the political one, it is the misuse of the pulpit.  Adrian quotes Rick Phillips at Reformation21 as follows:

"When I first saw the YouTube excerpts of Wright's preaching, my first thought was not, "He hates America!" or "He's a racist!" but "What a terrible use of God's pulpit!" I feel exactly the same outrage whenever I see a candidate standing behind a pulpit—Democrat or Republican. I feel exactly the same outrage whenever I see a preacher extolling the virtues (or vices) of a particular candidate—Democrat or Republican. Surely the church pulpit is intended for higher and better matters than the small concerns of national politics! The pulpit is not an institution of the republic, but of the Kingdom, and its only legitimate use is the preaching of King Jesus. Politics should be kept out of the pulpit, not merely for reasons of church-state separation, but because the pulpit is for matters of such greater significance."

Amen and amen!