Marvin Olasky recently asked Tim Keller what it was like being in "college during those weird years of campus protests four decades ago." Keller's response speaks volumes regarding much of contemporary communication (including much of the blogosphere): "There was no school for weeks. We had huge meetings in the center of the campus with an open mic. Anybody could get up and just talk. It was really boring."
At the risk of just talking, here are a couple highlights from my CCA week and some top reads.
Donald Miller's visit to Messiah inspired several great conversations in class earlier this week. Since I've voiced ill-informed opinions about him before, I'll add that several of his ideas, as summarized by a couple thoughtful students, sounded a lot like open theism (the idea that God develops and grows alongside his creation). Along with a several serious concerns like this, there were a couple things (like his ruminations on nakedness and innocence in the garden) that I really enjoyed. To capitalize on this event, a group of CCA students will hold a Vittle Moot regarding some of Miller’s political views over lunch on May 5.
Also, I've gotten into several good conversations in the last couple days about the value of critical thinking vs. humble submission. Students need to learn loving service, wisdom and submissiveness alongside boldness, curiosity and creativity.
For two weeks, I've been experimenting for the first time with an online feed reader. It's an almost impossible tool to tame, but I think it could cut down on time wasted online if used rightly. Also, I've enjoyed a couple great article exchanges with my wife (the first two below are thanks to her):
This refreshing rant against the good life in Dubai takes moral excoriation to delightful levels.
Anyone who was interested in the recent CCA talk with Kevin Kelly would enjoy this article about posthumanism. It underscores the fact that Kevin Kelly is in a fairly narrow class of his own as someone trying to be both a Christian and a posthumanist (or transhumanist, which is typically synonymous).
This is a great reminder to vote in a couple days.
Here’s a report on some brave Christians in Iraqi (followed by some discussion what it means for Christians to avoid making graven images).
I agree that China vs. America is the most likely fight of the century, but I’m not quite as optimistic about the outcome.
CCA staff are all reading a wonderful book about sin, and here is an excellent summary of the book (by the author) in 23 pages.
Here a student of Bruce Waltke goes to bat for his old teacher.
This review of a great-looking picture story Bible mentions another one, Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name, that we've just finished in our family and enjoyed quite a bit.
There's been lots of blog talk about the two big theological conferences taking place recently:
thoughtful report
gushing report
critique of gushing report
slam of gushing report
response from gusher
My thoughts on these exchanges: Telling a fellow Christian that you think they are wrong does not constitute failing to love them. Wanting to all just get together and sing songs that we can agree upon is no solution. Given our historical situation, we'd do well to render our heavenly worship enthusiastically and faithfully within our separate churches while also coming together in love outside of church for delightful times of honest debate and creative culture-making (like building schools together, for example).
This report on the little-known Museum of Biblical Art in Manhattan makes it sound like a great field trip opportunity.
Finally, a few good words on how to write and think well (with Orwell):
Many people ... who think about the general quality of scholarly prose would admit that we're in a sorry state, and most would say there isn't much to do about it.
But George Orwell did something about it. In 1946 he wrote "Politics and the English Language," an essay that explains the connections between bad writing and bad thinking as well as the political consequences: "Modern [insert the word "academic" here] English, especially written English, is full of bad habits which spread by imitation and which can be avoided if one is willing to take the necessary trouble. If one gets rid of these habits one can think more clearly, and to think clearly is a necessary first step toward political regeneration: so that the fight against bad English is not frivolous and is not the exclusive concern of professional [or scholarly] writers."
By writing prose that is nearly unintelligible not just to the general public, but also to graduate students and fellow academics in your discipline, you are not doing the work of advancing knowledge.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Sunday, April 25, 2010
The Avalon Project - Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy
The Avalon Project is the name of Yale Law School's digital library of Documents relating to Law, History and Diplomacy.
The project contains online electronic copies of documents dating back over the past two thousand years and so it possible to study the original text of not only very famous documents such as Magna Carta, The English Bill of Rights, The United States Bill of Rights, etc. but also the text of less well known but significant documents which mark turning points in the history of law and rights.
Friday, April 23, 2010
Suggested Reading
Life After Death: The Evidence, by Dinesh D'Souza. The goal of the work, as with many of D'Souza's past efforts, is to approach a Christian idea through secular eyes. In this case, he considers the scientific and rational evidence for the religious afterlife (he doesn't limit himself to the Christian version), as though science and reason are at odds with faith. I'm only about halfway through, but it's a quick read and displays D'Souza's characteristic logic. I recommend it to anyone interested in a little mental exercise.
Our Confessedly Striking Method of Life
With the ever-present desire to keep up on gossip and stay relevant, I need to turn more often to out-of-date voices and keep happily silent. This passage from the Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus (one of the earliest Christian apologetics) keeps coming to my mind this year and reminds me of 1 Thessalonians 4:11-12. "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody."
Our Christian call to a hidden and private kind of distinctness becomes increasingly vital as the culture at large drifts further away from godly values. I can always use the reminder to pipe down and worship God more faithfully with my private life. Therefore, even though (or because) the number of new readers on here continues to climb a little each day, I need to back down and post no more than once a week. Hold me accountable. However, I'd always love to see gleanings from others.
CHAPTER V -- The Manners of the Christians:
For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.
For the Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. The course of conduct which they follow has not been devised by any speculation or deliberation of inquisitive men; nor do they, like some, proclaim themselves the advocates of any merely human doctrines. But, inhabiting Greek as well as barbarian cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners. As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all [others]; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven. They obey the prescribed laws, and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor are glorified. They are evil spoken of, and yet are justified; they are reviled, and bless; they are insulted, and repay the insult with honor; they do good, yet are punished as evil-doers. When punished, they rejoice as if quickened into life; they are assailed by the Jews as foreigners, and are persecuted by the Greeks; yet those who hate them are unable to assign any reason for their hatred.
Our Christian call to a hidden and private kind of distinctness becomes increasingly vital as the culture at large drifts further away from godly values. I can always use the reminder to pipe down and worship God more faithfully with my private life. Therefore, even though (or because) the number of new readers on here continues to climb a little each day, I need to back down and post no more than once a week. Hold me accountable. However, I'd always love to see gleanings from others.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
How Close We Came to Losing It: Pennsylvania, Marriage & The Courts
From the PA Family Institute Blog by Michael Geer:
I think Pennsylvanians ought to know just how close they came to seeing the long-standing definition of marriage as the union of husband and wife gone.
In a recent case involving a lesbian couple, a Berks County judge was asked to throw out Pennsylvania’s marriage laws. The legal brief argued that “it is time to change our definitions…” This was a direct challenge to how Pennsylvania’s government has always treated marriage.
...Marriage may not be paradise, but it is the proven foundation of society. Paving it over with a newer and trendier model will only further weaken that foundation, to the detriment of families, children and all of society.
[Follow this link for the full story.]
I think Pennsylvanians ought to know just how close they came to seeing the long-standing definition of marriage as the union of husband and wife gone.
In a recent case involving a lesbian couple, a Berks County judge was asked to throw out Pennsylvania’s marriage laws. The legal brief argued that “it is time to change our definitions…” This was a direct challenge to how Pennsylvania’s government has always treated marriage.
...Marriage may not be paradise, but it is the proven foundation of society. Paving it over with a newer and trendier model will only further weaken that foundation, to the detriment of families, children and all of society.
[Follow this link for the full story.]
Monday, April 19, 2010
Recent Reads
This assessment is too simplistic (and lumps together lot of names, an issue in most writings on this topic), but it's helpful to note that many elements of both the emergent church and post-modernism are passing fads. Farewell Emerging Church, 1989-2010 by Anthony Bradley:
From Brian McLaren to Erwin McManus to Rob Bell to Tony Jones to Mark Driscoll and others, the theological lines have been drawn and are settled. We have all moved on. We know who fits into evangelicalism, post-liberalism, Anabaptism, Calvinism, and so on. If you are interested in the emerging movement as church history, pick up a copy of Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Communities in Postmodern Cultures by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger.
...Because post-modernism as movement is also dead as scientific realism emerged as a recent culture-shaping philosophical movement, the generation of Christians struggling to meet the challenges of post-modernism, instead of yelling at it hoping it would go way, are shifting as well to address a world asking different questions. While the effects of the emerging church movement will linger for some time we will begin to see books praising and attacking the movement go out of print.
Help Your Kids in their Faith Without Being Cheesy by Dan Bartkowiak:
Does God Exist is a DVD series from the creators of The Truth Project. The host, Dr. Stephen Meyer, plays a "philosophical survival game" pitting four worldviews against one another in the quest to decide which one gives the best answers.
A Few Good Books by Carl Trueman:
In addition to Kevin DeYoung's great little devotional commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, The Good News We Almost Forgot (Moody), there is also J.I. Packer and Gary A. Parrett's learned and provocative argument for putting catchesis back at the heart of the church, Grounded in the Gospel (Baker). Taken together, these books are delightful, encouraging, and, for those involved in church leadership, challenging, calling us to revisit old paths in new ways, avoiding both the romantic antiquarianism of so much Reformed church life, and the consumerist eclecticism of the ad hoc approach to the past found in emergent quarters.
The Examined Life, Age 8 from the NYT:
A few times each month, second graders at a charter school in Springfield, Mass., take time from math and reading to engage in philosophical debate. There is no mention of Hegel or Descartes, no study of syllogism or solipsism. Instead, Prof. Thomas E. Wartenberg and his undergraduate students from nearby Mount Holyoke College use classic children’s books to raise philosophical questions, which the young students then dissect with the vigor of the ancient Greeks.
Veith links to this article by a Catholic artist and educator David Clayton who makes connections between science, aesthetics, classical education, and then (for good measure) liturgy:
When we apprehend beauty we do so intuitively. So an education that improves our ability to apprehend beauty develops also our intuition. All creativity is at source an intuitive process. This means that professionals in any field including business and science would benefit from an education in beauty because it would develop their creativity. Furthermore, the creativity that an education in beauty stimulates will generate not just more ideas, but better ideas. Better because they are more in harmony with the natural order. The recognition of beauty moves us to love what we see. So such an education would tend to develop also, therefore, our capacity to love and leave us more inclined to the serve God and our fellow man. The end result for the individual who follows this path is joy.
This fellow plays a tune I like. But whatever you think of his rhetoric, CCA excels at this. On Remaking Private Life–At School by Jason Peters:
I wrote in a previous piece that I have been making preparations for a future in which such disciplines as my own will be an unaffordable luxury in most liberal-arts colleges. May no fate willfully misunderstand me: I’m not hoping for the early advent of that future. I would like to continue to teach Coleridge. But not only Coleridge. Cabbage too.
Here are a couple articles on a topic that I posted about some time back.
Theistic Evolution: A Hermeneutical Trojan Horse by Rick Phillips:
I have been interested to follow the web reaction to Dr. Bruce Waltke's resignation from RTS for his Biologos video insisting that evangelicals must accept evolution or be considered a "cult", especially that which lambasts those who would criticize scholars of such eminence as Dr. Waltke. There are, however, some features of Waltke's video, as with Dr. Enns' articles on Paul and Adam, that counter this sentiment. Most significant is the fact that neither of these Old Testament scholars base their arguments on the Old Testament at all. Rather, their claims are based on evidence from outside of their academic competence - science and archaeology - and only then do they turn to the Bible, seeking to harmonize Scripture with the scientific orthodoxy. This is, in fact, the true issue that has people like me so concerned: our supposedly eminent Bible scholars are now going on record to say that we must subordinate the authority of Scripture to the higher and more objective standard of secular science.
The Stakes Have Never Been Higher by Darryl G. Hart:
According to ABC News, and its report on the resignation of Bruce Waltke from Reformed Theological Seminary, both sides agree that the stakes are indeed that high. Higher than the Scopes Trial? But to the idea that if Christians do not accept the idea of evolution they run the risk of becoming a cult, I wonder if Waltke or his supporter Enns, or ABC’s expert interviewee, Balmer, ever considered what belief in the resurrection of Christ makes the church look like before the scientifically knowledgeable world. Granted, the Genesis account of God’s creation of the parents of the human race may from a scientific perspective be hard to believe. I, frankly, am not sure that the naturalistic accounts of human origins are any easier to understand or believe. Be that as it may, do the Christians advocating evolution – and I am not going to give them too hard a time since one of my favorite theologians (sorry, Gary), Benjamin Warfield was one of them – really think the idea of Christ’s resurrection makes Christians soft, cuddly, and scientifically mainstream?
One more list:
100 Free Online Ivy League Courses You Should Take Just for Fun
From Brian McLaren to Erwin McManus to Rob Bell to Tony Jones to Mark Driscoll and others, the theological lines have been drawn and are settled. We have all moved on. We know who fits into evangelicalism, post-liberalism, Anabaptism, Calvinism, and so on. If you are interested in the emerging movement as church history, pick up a copy of Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Communities in Postmodern Cultures by Eddie Gibbs and Ryan Bolger.
...Because post-modernism as movement is also dead as scientific realism emerged as a recent culture-shaping philosophical movement, the generation of Christians struggling to meet the challenges of post-modernism, instead of yelling at it hoping it would go way, are shifting as well to address a world asking different questions. While the effects of the emerging church movement will linger for some time we will begin to see books praising and attacking the movement go out of print.
Help Your Kids in their Faith Without Being Cheesy by Dan Bartkowiak:
Does God Exist is a DVD series from the creators of The Truth Project. The host, Dr. Stephen Meyer, plays a "philosophical survival game" pitting four worldviews against one another in the quest to decide which one gives the best answers.
A Few Good Books by Carl Trueman:
In addition to Kevin DeYoung's great little devotional commentary on the Heidelberg Catechism, The Good News We Almost Forgot (Moody), there is also J.I. Packer and Gary A. Parrett's learned and provocative argument for putting catchesis back at the heart of the church, Grounded in the Gospel (Baker). Taken together, these books are delightful, encouraging, and, for those involved in church leadership, challenging, calling us to revisit old paths in new ways, avoiding both the romantic antiquarianism of so much Reformed church life, and the consumerist eclecticism of the ad hoc approach to the past found in emergent quarters.
The Examined Life, Age 8 from the NYT:
A few times each month, second graders at a charter school in Springfield, Mass., take time from math and reading to engage in philosophical debate. There is no mention of Hegel or Descartes, no study of syllogism or solipsism. Instead, Prof. Thomas E. Wartenberg and his undergraduate students from nearby Mount Holyoke College use classic children’s books to raise philosophical questions, which the young students then dissect with the vigor of the ancient Greeks.
Veith links to this article by a Catholic artist and educator David Clayton who makes connections between science, aesthetics, classical education, and then (for good measure) liturgy:
When we apprehend beauty we do so intuitively. So an education that improves our ability to apprehend beauty develops also our intuition. All creativity is at source an intuitive process. This means that professionals in any field including business and science would benefit from an education in beauty because it would develop their creativity. Furthermore, the creativity that an education in beauty stimulates will generate not just more ideas, but better ideas. Better because they are more in harmony with the natural order. The recognition of beauty moves us to love what we see. So such an education would tend to develop also, therefore, our capacity to love and leave us more inclined to the serve God and our fellow man. The end result for the individual who follows this path is joy.
This fellow plays a tune I like. But whatever you think of his rhetoric, CCA excels at this. On Remaking Private Life–At School by Jason Peters:
I wrote in a previous piece that I have been making preparations for a future in which such disciplines as my own will be an unaffordable luxury in most liberal-arts colleges. May no fate willfully misunderstand me: I’m not hoping for the early advent of that future. I would like to continue to teach Coleridge. But not only Coleridge. Cabbage too.
Here are a couple articles on a topic that I posted about some time back.
Theistic Evolution: A Hermeneutical Trojan Horse by Rick Phillips:
I have been interested to follow the web reaction to Dr. Bruce Waltke's resignation from RTS for his Biologos video insisting that evangelicals must accept evolution or be considered a "cult", especially that which lambasts those who would criticize scholars of such eminence as Dr. Waltke. There are, however, some features of Waltke's video, as with Dr. Enns' articles on Paul and Adam, that counter this sentiment. Most significant is the fact that neither of these Old Testament scholars base their arguments on the Old Testament at all. Rather, their claims are based on evidence from outside of their academic competence - science and archaeology - and only then do they turn to the Bible, seeking to harmonize Scripture with the scientific orthodoxy. This is, in fact, the true issue that has people like me so concerned: our supposedly eminent Bible scholars are now going on record to say that we must subordinate the authority of Scripture to the higher and more objective standard of secular science.
The Stakes Have Never Been Higher by Darryl G. Hart:
According to ABC News, and its report on the resignation of Bruce Waltke from Reformed Theological Seminary, both sides agree that the stakes are indeed that high. Higher than the Scopes Trial? But to the idea that if Christians do not accept the idea of evolution they run the risk of becoming a cult, I wonder if Waltke or his supporter Enns, or ABC’s expert interviewee, Balmer, ever considered what belief in the resurrection of Christ makes the church look like before the scientifically knowledgeable world. Granted, the Genesis account of God’s creation of the parents of the human race may from a scientific perspective be hard to believe. I, frankly, am not sure that the naturalistic accounts of human origins are any easier to understand or believe. Be that as it may, do the Christians advocating evolution – and I am not going to give them too hard a time since one of my favorite theologians (sorry, Gary), Benjamin Warfield was one of them – really think the idea of Christ’s resurrection makes Christians soft, cuddly, and scientifically mainstream?
One more list:
100 Free Online Ivy League Courses You Should Take Just for Fun
Sunday, April 18, 2010
God's Temple
I occasionally collect my thoughts and pester my siblings by posting some meandering biblical-theological ruminations on our extended family blog. They generally consist of wild speculations and ridiculous over-generalizations (on a narrow set of grossly repetitive themes). I'll try sharing one on here:
We are God's temple. Cosmos, city, church, family, couple, friendship, and individual human, each entity is best understood as a temple.
Theologians often note that the Old Testament tabernacle and temple plan reflected the rest of God's creation, like a mini cosmos. Moses and Solomon incorporated motifs from heaven and earth, garden and city, land and sea into the divinely dictated layout, decorations, and utensils. Meredith Kline’s writings repeatedly emphasize our human status as priest-kings, designed to minister within God's creation as the bearers of God's glory, made in his image and likeness for this one purpose. John H. Walton (OT professor at Wheaton and author of the Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament) argues that most cultures around Israel understood something to exist in so far as it had a divine function (i.e. served the gods) rather than in so far as it had spatial-temporal properties (as our modern minds naturally tend to think). This fundamentally different ontological perspective alters the way that we perceive and value ourselves and the world. It understands the entire universe to be, at its most basic level, a temple designed to display glory and enable worship. And God gave humans charge over it, placing us at the center of it all.
Not surprisingly, many ancient peoples had some concept of these things, but Israel received the truth regarding this Creator from God himself. As God relates it, He built the first temple, fashioning the heavens and the hearth to declare His glory. He then made us to serve him in the midst of the glorious creation, giving us the job of enjoying and bringing out the best in everything that surrounds us. As priests, we display His glory in every task and interaction that we undertake with each other or our physical environment. These principles underlie the Reformed doctrines of vocation and the priesthood of all believers. God at Work, a little book by Gene Veith, explains this wonderfully. Recognizing all of creation as a temple and we as its priests also brings to mind a string of other voguish concepts such as "redeeming everything for Christ" or "living sacramentally" or "living incarnationally." Serving as the "hands of God" (or recognizing God behind every ordinary blessing) is how Veith puts it. These priestly connections and responsibilities grow even more clear and profound as we look at how all this temple imagery plays out in the rest of scripture.
Skipping over the rest of the Old Testament (and essential material that comes to mind from Ezekiel, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zachariah), we'll jump straight to the New Testament for a highlights version wrap-up. Christ, in his incarnation, is identified clearly as the temple. Christ is said by John to have come down and "tabernacled among us." He promised to tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days, linking the temple directly with his own flesh and blood. And we are the body of Christ. Feasting upon him and united with him, we live, die, and are raised into the heavenly realms with him. Paul identifies each of our bodies, then, as a temple of the Holy Spirit. We are living sacrifices. Peter says that we are living stones being built into a temple upon Christ who is the chief corner stone. (Elsewhere, Christ is called the stone that the builders rejected, reminding us that a rival building project is underway.) Being members of Christ's body and parts of the Divine temple mean the same thing, further reinforcing the connection between body and temple. Finally, when John sees the New Jerusalem descending from heaven, its gates are the twelve tribes of Israel and its foundations are the twelve apostles of the church. Within that city built of living sacrifices, however, there is no sun and no temple because our triune and incarnate God will be its light and its fullness of glory.
God help us, even now, to see, speak and think as priests within our own bodies, our churches, marriages, families, schools, neighborhoods, and nation. No matter where we turn or what we touch, if it doesn't display glory and enable true worship, we haven't recognized it for what it is.
We are God's temple. Cosmos, city, church, family, couple, friendship, and individual human, each entity is best understood as a temple.
Theologians often note that the Old Testament tabernacle and temple plan reflected the rest of God's creation, like a mini cosmos. Moses and Solomon incorporated motifs from heaven and earth, garden and city, land and sea into the divinely dictated layout, decorations, and utensils. Meredith Kline’s writings repeatedly emphasize our human status as priest-kings, designed to minister within God's creation as the bearers of God's glory, made in his image and likeness for this one purpose. John H. Walton (OT professor at Wheaton and author of the Ancient Near Eastern Thought and the Old Testament) argues that most cultures around Israel understood something to exist in so far as it had a divine function (i.e. served the gods) rather than in so far as it had spatial-temporal properties (as our modern minds naturally tend to think). This fundamentally different ontological perspective alters the way that we perceive and value ourselves and the world. It understands the entire universe to be, at its most basic level, a temple designed to display glory and enable worship. And God gave humans charge over it, placing us at the center of it all.
Not surprisingly, many ancient peoples had some concept of these things, but Israel received the truth regarding this Creator from God himself. As God relates it, He built the first temple, fashioning the heavens and the hearth to declare His glory. He then made us to serve him in the midst of the glorious creation, giving us the job of enjoying and bringing out the best in everything that surrounds us. As priests, we display His glory in every task and interaction that we undertake with each other or our physical environment. These principles underlie the Reformed doctrines of vocation and the priesthood of all believers. God at Work, a little book by Gene Veith, explains this wonderfully. Recognizing all of creation as a temple and we as its priests also brings to mind a string of other voguish concepts such as "redeeming everything for Christ" or "living sacramentally" or "living incarnationally." Serving as the "hands of God" (or recognizing God behind every ordinary blessing) is how Veith puts it. These priestly connections and responsibilities grow even more clear and profound as we look at how all this temple imagery plays out in the rest of scripture.
Skipping over the rest of the Old Testament (and essential material that comes to mind from Ezekiel, Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, and Zachariah), we'll jump straight to the New Testament for a highlights version wrap-up. Christ, in his incarnation, is identified clearly as the temple. Christ is said by John to have come down and "tabernacled among us." He promised to tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days, linking the temple directly with his own flesh and blood. And we are the body of Christ. Feasting upon him and united with him, we live, die, and are raised into the heavenly realms with him. Paul identifies each of our bodies, then, as a temple of the Holy Spirit. We are living sacrifices. Peter says that we are living stones being built into a temple upon Christ who is the chief corner stone. (Elsewhere, Christ is called the stone that the builders rejected, reminding us that a rival building project is underway.) Being members of Christ's body and parts of the Divine temple mean the same thing, further reinforcing the connection between body and temple. Finally, when John sees the New Jerusalem descending from heaven, its gates are the twelve tribes of Israel and its foundations are the twelve apostles of the church. Within that city built of living sacrifices, however, there is no sun and no temple because our triune and incarnate God will be its light and its fullness of glory.
God help us, even now, to see, speak and think as priests within our own bodies, our churches, marriages, families, schools, neighborhoods, and nation. No matter where we turn or what we touch, if it doesn't display glory and enable true worship, we haven't recognized it for what it is.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
Truth Project Training Seminars
Pennsylvania Family Institute and Focus on the Family invite you to attend our Truth Project Training Seminar. At the training you receive The Truth Project 8-disc DVD curriculum and the necessary training to lead a small group through this innovative and potential life-changing experience. For more information and to register for a training near you, go to www.pafamily.org/truthproject.php or call 717-545-0600.
Sand Animation of Life in the USSR during World War II
My brother in law shared this with the family recently. Kseniya Simonova is a sand animator from Ukraine. She started drawing with sand after her business collapsed in the 2008 financial crisis, and had less than a year's experience when she entered Ukraine's Got Talent. She became the 2009 winner (and an internet sensation) with her animation of life during the USSR's Great Patriotic War against the Third Reich in World War II. It's nifty and kind of lovely (in a Ukrainian TV kind of way at the very least):
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Donald Miller has come up on the Plunder Pile here and here. I just received this poster promoting his upcoming talk at Messiah. Regardless of where you stand regarding his ministry and theology, he's being listened to earnestly by many young people and worth learning more about.
Kids Online: Some Secular Resources
Teaching About Web Includes Troublesome Parts at the NYtimes.
One resource they recommended:
Common Sense Media is dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in a world of media and technology.
We exist because our nation's children spend more time with media and digital activities than they do with their families or in school, which profoundly impacts their social, emotional, and physical development. As a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization, we provide trustworthy information and tools, as well as an independent forum, so that families can have a choice and a voice about the media they consume.
One resource they recommended:
Common Sense Media is dedicated to improving the lives of kids and families by providing the trustworthy information, education, and independent voice they need to thrive in a world of media and technology.
We exist because our nation's children spend more time with media and digital activities than they do with their families or in school, which profoundly impacts their social, emotional, and physical development. As a non-partisan, not-for-profit organization, we provide trustworthy information and tools, as well as an independent forum, so that families can have a choice and a voice about the media they consume.
Monday, April 12, 2010
GoodReads.com
I only just discovered goodreads.com in a blurb from World magazine (below). It's great for organizing your reading wish list, keeping track of books you liked, and finding good books. You can find booklists by authors or friends that you know. Douglas Wilson, for example, has rated 1681 books and (briefly) commented on 1357. If you join (or know of a better such forum), please let me know.
Here's the blurb from World: Goodreads, the popular social networking and library cataloguing website for bibliophiles, has released a free iPhone app. Search for books and categorize them in custom virtual bookshelves. Catalog the books you've read, are currently reading, or plan to read in the future. Rate and review books, or start a virtual book club. Don't have an iPhone? You can do all this on the Goodreads website as well (goodreads.com). — Alissa Wilkinson
Here's the blurb from World: Goodreads, the popular social networking and library cataloguing website for bibliophiles, has released a free iPhone app. Search for books and categorize them in custom virtual bookshelves. Catalog the books you've read, are currently reading, or plan to read in the future. Rate and review books, or start a virtual book club. Don't have an iPhone? You can do all this on the Goodreads website as well (goodreads.com). — Alissa Wilkinson
What evangelicals need from Lutheranism (and vice versa?)
Gene Veith (scholar and journalist whose recent little book God at Work is a great read) writes about a recent post by the late Michael Spencer (a.k.a. Internet Monk), a widely-respected Baptist pastor and blogger who just passed away:
Michael Spencer … was ecstatic about the new resources for theology and spirituality recently published by Concordia Publishing House: the Concordia (the reader’s edition of the Book of Concord), the Treasure of Daily Prayer, and now the Lutheran Study Bible. In the course of his rave review of the latter, he expressed his frustration with Lutheranism, which tends to keep to itself even though its emphases are exactly what the broader Christian and evangelical world needs right now.
…The Calvinist influence in evangelicalism far exceeds the number of actual confessional Calvinists. Lutheran theology would seem to resolve a number of issues that evangelicals are struggling with: how you can believe salvation is by grace alone while also insisting that Christ died for all; how to resolve the conflict between Christianity and culture; how to affirm the heritage of catholic Christianity while also affirming the best of Protestantism; etc., etc.
Michael Spencer … was ecstatic about the new resources for theology and spirituality recently published by Concordia Publishing House: the Concordia (the reader’s edition of the Book of Concord), the Treasure of Daily Prayer, and now the Lutheran Study Bible. In the course of his rave review of the latter, he expressed his frustration with Lutheranism, which tends to keep to itself even though its emphases are exactly what the broader Christian and evangelical world needs right now.
…The Calvinist influence in evangelicalism far exceeds the number of actual confessional Calvinists. Lutheran theology would seem to resolve a number of issues that evangelicals are struggling with: how you can believe salvation is by grace alone while also insisting that Christ died for all; how to resolve the conflict between Christianity and culture; how to affirm the heritage of catholic Christianity while also affirming the best of Protestantism; etc., etc.
Messiah College Brass Choir Concert at Trinity Church
The Messiah College Brass Choir will present a concert at Trinity Presbyterian Church on Friday, April 16, 2010 (at 7:30). The Brass Choir, under the direction of Mike Harcrow, is a group of 24 talented brass players and percussionists. They have been honored with an invitation to perform the following week at the Pennsylvania Music Educators' Association Convention in Pittsburgh, and the concert at Trinity will be the debut of the program to be performed there. Selections will include exciting works by well-known composers Paul Dukas and Serge Prokofiev, George Gershwin and John Philip Sousa, Pennsylvania composer Jack Stamp, and others. There will be section features as well as solo performances by two outstanding young soloists from the Toronto Salvation Army Staff Band who currently attend Messiah College.
See calendar on sidebar for details.
See calendar on sidebar for details.
Google Analytics
I've set up Google Analytics for the Plunder Pile to see if it's serving anyone.
From March 31 to April 11 (mostly over Spring Break), there were a total of 169 visits and 325 page views from 74 different IP addresses.
Some of those are bots and random outside hits. By only looking at IP address from the city of Harrisburg over the same time period, we had 99 visits (just over 8 per day), averaging 5.5 minutes on the site each time.
I know very little about what these stats mean. If anyone would like access to the analytics account, I can pass it on.
From March 31 to April 11 (mostly over Spring Break), there were a total of 169 visits and 325 page views from 74 different IP addresses.
Some of those are bots and random outside hits. By only looking at IP address from the city of Harrisburg over the same time period, we had 99 visits (just over 8 per day), averaging 5.5 minutes on the site each time.
I know very little about what these stats mean. If anyone would like access to the analytics account, I can pass it on.
Monday, April 5, 2010
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Christ vs. Witch-hunts
A sober news item thanks to Chip Boyle:
Is One Man's Faith Another's Superstition?
An article by David Gibson writing for The Wall Street Journal.
...Earlier this month, Amnesty International reported that more than 1,000 people were rounded up in Gambia in a government-sponsored witch-hunt, and in Tanzania alone, at least 45 albinos have been murdered since 2007 because popular superstition holds that they are witches.
...Accidental similarities between religion and magic should not lead anyone to confuse the difference in their content. Nor should the focus on witchcraft in places like Africa blind the rest of us to the lures of superstition that continue to cloud our own beliefs.
In Africa, Pope Benedict answered objections that he should leave the superstitious in peace -- arguing that it is no injustice to "present Christ to them and thus grant them the opportunity of finding their truest and most authentic selves, the joy of finding life." That could be said to be the highest goal of any true religion, as opposed to the best that witchcraft has to offer.
Is One Man's Faith Another's Superstition?
An article by David Gibson writing for The Wall Street Journal.
...Earlier this month, Amnesty International reported that more than 1,000 people were rounded up in Gambia in a government-sponsored witch-hunt, and in Tanzania alone, at least 45 albinos have been murdered since 2007 because popular superstition holds that they are witches.
...Accidental similarities between religion and magic should not lead anyone to confuse the difference in their content. Nor should the focus on witchcraft in places like Africa blind the rest of us to the lures of superstition that continue to cloud our own beliefs.
In Africa, Pope Benedict answered objections that he should leave the superstitious in peace -- arguing that it is no injustice to "present Christ to them and thus grant them the opportunity of finding their truest and most authentic selves, the joy of finding life." That could be said to be the highest goal of any true religion, as opposed to the best that witchcraft has to offer.
Impressive Little Tool: Readability
Readability : An Arc90 Lab Experiment from Arc90 on Vimeo.
More information here.
Go here to set up your own prefferences and create a link.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
