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The division between the academic and the poplar has roots deeper than eighteenth-century controversies between history and theology. The squabble between those who conceive of Christianity as basically a matter of outward and physical signs and those who conceive it to be a matter of inner light is almost perennial; so is the deep mistrust that separates those who advocate simple piety from those who insist that faith must always be ‘seeking understanding’.

-N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, p.5

Perennial is right! It seems pretty easy to chop up nearly all church controversies over the years into one of these camps. Sometimes these categories don’t work, but for most things they do.

As with nearly all these sorts of dichotomies, the “answer” is some sort of balance between the two: Emphasize piety and holy living, but without letting it deteriorate into legalism and behavorism (an easy trap to fall into). Emphasize education and religious study, without forsaking the getting-you-butt-out-there-and-living-it aspect (also an easy trap).

The examples that come to mind include Emergent church members who are out on the streets helping the homeless every day, but have grown to deny the creeds and allowed various sins to be acceptable within their church community.

Contrast with this with the man who can’t ever help his neighbor because he’s holed up in his office studying Jonathan Edwards 20 hours a week.

I am more tempted to fall into the latter of these.

Last year I tackled the 740 page The Resurrection of the Son of God – by far the largest and most “serious” book I’ve tried to read in my attempt to remedy my thin grasp on church history, philosophy and theology. I didn’t have the background to understand half of what he was talking about, but it was well worth it anyway.

I realized though that the earlier volumes in the series (that was book number 3), might be of greater interest. I’m beginning with the first volume, which is more about the New Testament itself, the surrounding history of Israel, and what we know about the early church.  The second book in the series is about Jesus. He has yet to complete volumes four and five. One of them is about Paul. Not sure about the other one. At the rate I go, I’ll be lucky to finish it in 2 months.

As someone who is a rather slow writer, I’ve always been amazed at how incredible the output of some folks can be. My friend Brendan one commented that Peter Leithart can write faster than he (Brendan) can read. If that’s true, than for N.T. Wright it’s even more so. And he’s not just blabbing either. This is RICH stuff.

I came across this in the “thank you” section of his introduction:

In the main draft of volumes 1 and 2 and the first half of volume 3, was written while on sabbatical in Jerusalem during the summer of 1989.

-N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, p.xix

You’re kidding. I know it’s only the first draft, before it’s cleaned up, but that’s still 1000-1500 PAGES (in a pretty small font I might add) written in, what, 4 months? Absolutely astounding. And the work itself is a masterpiece, not just chatter.

This is up there with Michael Phelps winning 8 gold medals, and breaking 7 world records in one week (only without smoking bongs are a party afterward). This is like that prodigy musician who could play the 100+ existing Miles Davis transcriptions from memory when he was 14.

I’m trying not to be a N.T. Wright fanboy, but it’s hard sometimes. I mean, if you want to be a critic, it’s not that hard to find some areas he’s surprisingly weak in. But come on! How many brilliant scholars are there like this? Quite a few I imagine actually. But in addition to thinking well, how many can work this hard and fast? It’s impressive. That’s all.

The family small group I’m in at church recently decided to work through a book on parenting over several weeks. Before I opened the book, I decided I would wait and see if how long it took for the word “unfortunately” to show up. Answer: The second paragraph of the introduction.

That’s pretty normal really. The book actually isn’t too bad, but it follows the usual pattern of Christian self-help:

God really wants Christians to do ___________________.

Unfortunately, we all stink at this. Good thing you’ve got this book! Now I’ll tell you how to fix it.

a slightly improved option is the “appearance of humility” introduction:

Don’t you want this great thing the Lord has for you? We’ll I’m going to help you do just that.

Disclaimer: I don’t know all the answers, so God help me. I probably know more than you though, so listen up.

It’s refreshing to find something seriously different. I just cracked open another book by N.T. Wright and found this in the introduction:

I make many mistakes in moral and practical manners, so why should I imagine my thinking to be mysteriously exempt? But whereas if I hurt someone, or take a wrong turn in the road, I am usually confronted quite soon with my error, if I expound erratic views within the world of academic theology I am less likely to be convinced by contradiction. We all have ways of coping with adverse comment without changing our minds.

-N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, p.xvii

Oooooo. We all have ways of coping and not changing our minds when we’re wrong.

I’m so sick of hearing about how “great leaders use self-deprecating humor”. Most of the time it seems forced or faked actually. There is no mistake on this into to one of Thomas Merton’s journals:

In any case, the careless style, the callow opinions and all the other defects are those of writer much younger and even more unwise that I am at the present.

-Thomas Merton, Secular Journals, preface

We could all use a bit more authentic humility in our religious discorse if you ask me. And you don’t have to compromise your beliefs to do it either.

I remember ever since I was young, the capitalization of the word God and especially the pronouns Him and Himself bothered me. I remember getting marked down on an essay once for not capitalizing “him” in a sentence that was referring to Jesus. Now, I understand what they (whoever came up with this scheme) is trying to do, but I think they were going about it the wrong way. I’ve always felt this was an unnecessary tweaking of grammar, that the meaning was ALWAYS explained the context anyway. The fact that their use is rather spotty between different Bible translations and authors aggravates the problem. In fact, I do it myself all the time!

Why use these code words? It’s like when you are talking about the President of the U.S., you say “him*” with an asterix. And if you are talking about a “him” that is a father, then the word should be underlined. And if “him” is a animal, like you pet doggy, circle the letter “m”. Also, if you like the person you are talking about, use a blue marker. If you think they have a silly hairdo, use a red maker.

I’m sure whoever originated this practice had good intentions, but at the end of the day I think it serves more to muddle grammar and weaken language than to glorify the one true god and reduce confusion.

Frankly though, I’d never thought about this much. I just found it annoying.

In the preface to his huge work on the New Testament, N.T. Wright takes several paragraphs to sort out why he doesn’t like the capital “G” god either.

There are … matters of linguistic usage on which I must comment, and either apologize for or, perhaps, explain why apology should be unnecesary.

I have frequently used ‘god’ instead of ‘God’. This is not a printer’s error, not is it a deliberate irreverence; rather the opposte in face. The modern usage, without the article and with a capital, seems to me actually dangerous. This usage, which sometimes amounts to regarding ‘God’ as the proper name of the Deity, rather than essentially a common noun, implies that all users of te word are monotheists and, whithin that, that all monotheists believe in the same god. Both these propositions seem to me self-evidently untrue. It may or may not be true that any worship of any god is translated by some mysterious grace ito worship of one god who actually exists, and who happents to be the only god. That is believed by some students of religion. It is not, however, believed by very many practitioners of the mainline monothestic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam) or of the non-monotheistic ones (Hinduism, Buddhism and their cognates). Certainly the Jesus and Christians of the first century did not beieve it. they believed that pagans worshipped idols, or even demons.

It seem to me therefore, simply misleading to use ‘God’ throughout this work. I have often preferred either to refer to Israel’s god by the biblical name, YHWH (nonwithstanding debates about the use of this name within second-temple Judaism), or, in phrases designed to remind us of what or who we are talking about, to speak of ‘the creator’ or ‘Israel’s god’. The early Christians use the phrase ‘the god’ (ho theos) of this god, and this was (I believe) somewhat polemical, making an essentially Jewish-monotheistic point over against polytheism. In a world where there were many suns, one would not say ‘the sun’. Furthermore, the early Christians regulrly felt the need to make clear which god they were talking about by glossing the phrase, as Paul so oftem does, with a reference to the revelation of this god in and through Jesus of Nazareth. Since in fact, the present project presents a case, among other things, for a fresh understanding of the meaning of content of the word ‘god’, and ultimately ‘God’, in the light of Jesus, the Spirit and the New Testament, it would be begging the question to follow a usage which seemed to imply that the answer was known in advance. I think it quite likely that many of those who come to a book like this with the firm conviction that ‘Jesus is God’, and equally wel man of those who come with the firm conviction that he is not, may hold views on the meaning of ‘god’, or ‘God’, which ought to be challenged in the light of the New Testament. The christological question, as to whether the staement ‘Jesus is God’ is true, and if so in what sense, is often asked though ‘God’ were the known and ‘Jesus’ the unknown; this I suggest, is manifestly mistaken. If anything, the matter stands the other way around.

-N.T. Wright, The New Testament and the People of God, p.xvii

That very last statement is the most interesting:

The christological question, as to whether the staement ‘Jesus is God’ is true, and if so in what sense, is often asked though ‘God’ were the known and ‘Jesus’ the unknown; this I suggest, is manifestly mistaken. If anything, the matter stands the other way around.

We assume that we know God – that if we met him walking down the street, we would recognize him. That’s the given. We’re all over that. But Jesus? Who knows, that was so long ago and all we have are some stuff some guys wrote about him. Really? Do you see how odd that is?

In the next section he talks about how he always says “Jesus” and not “Christ”, since in the context of the New Testament, Jesus’ Messiaship was very much in question. Even amongst his followers. That’s a more specific case though.

I already mentioned earlier how I was pleasantly surprised to find George MacDonald’s eschatology to be in the same vein as N.T. Wright’s. That is, focusing on the redemption of creation as a whole and rejecting a Platonic, ethereal notion of heaven and resurrection.

Here, he invokes astronomy, as well as the animal kingdom:

The new heaven and the new earth will at least be a heaven and an earth! What would the newest earth be to the old children without its animals? Barer than the heavens emptied of the constellations that are called b their names. Then, if the earth must have its aimals, why not the old ones, already dear? The sons of God are not a new race of sons of God, but the old race glorified – why a new race of animals, and not the old ones glorified?

-George MacDonald, from Sermon: The Hope of the Universe

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I listened to a lecture by Os Guiness yesterday where he lamented how few young American’s have thought critically about what they believe. They have beliefs and opinions galore but if asked to explain them, would come up with little more than an appeal to visceral intuition.

My excursion into reading and study these past two years has largely been a reaction to my own frustration at not being able to explain in a satisfying way what I believe. This includes matters of faith and philosophy mostly, but also ideas about art, beauty, parenting, you name it. I feel think I’ve only scratched the surface.

Along these lines is this quote from George MacDonald I came across yesterday:

What many men call their beliefs are but the prejudices they happen to have picked up.

-George MacDonald, from Sermon: The Hope of the Universe

Alright, this blog is MY little scrapbook of stuff. Reblogging or reposting somebody else’s stuff is not what it’s about. But SOMETIMES, it just has to be done. This economic commentary from Fearsome Comrade has so much wrapped up in it. I just couldn’t stop sayin’ “right on!”.

I always find it amusing when some sociology graduate student headed straight for a career in retail describes himself as a “committed Keynesian,” as though how economies work were a matter of heartfelt commitment. You might as well describe yourself as a “committed Ptolemaist.” Simply put, Keynes was wrong. Not wrong the way Peter Singer is wrong about ethics, but the way Hippocrates was wrong about disease. He was wrong in the sense that after decades of putting his theories to the test, his prescriptions have at worst aggravated the ills they were intended to cure and at best failed to accomplish anything. Moreover, the simplified, caricatured version of Keynes’ theories that actually gets implemented in federal policy (at least in the West) is even more wrong. Keynes’ General Theory is certainly important from a historical view, as it provided the rational justification for greedy politicians’ pursuit of expanded power in the Anglo-influenced world, but from the standpoint of economics, it ought to be consigned the same place that Aristotle’s Physics is in the world of modern science. In time, it probably will be.

How you wish the millions upon millions of daily human interactions would work is a matter of ideology, but that’s not economics. How they actually do work is a matter of theory and observation, and that’s what economics is about. It’s not an exact science, but it’s more of a science than a religion.

Here, MacDonald give’s an eloquent pronouncement against secular intellectuals.

Actually, this is worth quoting if only for it’s use of the word “sagacity”!

The wise and prudent, with all their energy of thought, could never see the things of the Father sufficiently to recognize them as true. Their sagacity labors in earthly things, and so fills their minds with their own questions and conclusions that they cannot see the eternal foundations God has laid in man, or the consequent necessities of their own nature. They are proud of finding out things, but the things they find out are all less than themselves. Because, however they have discovered them, they imagine such things the goal of the human intellect.

If they grant there may be things beyond those, they either count them beyond their reach, or declare themselves uninterested in the: for the wise and prudent they do not exist. They work only to gather by the senses, and deduce from what they have so gathered the prudential, the probable, the expedient, the protective. They never think of the essential, of what in itself must be. They are cautious, wary, discreet, judicious, circumspect, provident, temporizing.

They have no enthusiasm, and are shy of all forms of it – a clever, hard, thin people, who take THINGS for the universe, and love of facts for love of truth.

-George MacDonald, from Sermon: The Yoke of Jesus

A variation on this comes to mind. I think you’ll meet few intellectuals these days that take such a hard line against what falls outside our senses. Look at all the secular academics in America interested in Zen Buddhism! That is to humble oneself just enough to admit that man’s wit cannot wrap itself around the whole of the universe.

In his sermon on “not hiding our lights under a bushel” (Matthew 5:13-16), George MacDonald hands out advice on how to do that in our day-to-day conduct. I found these passages the most relevant:

A Christian who looks gloomy at the mention of death, still more, one who talks of his friends as if he had lost them, turns the bushel of this little-faith love the lamp of the Lord’s light. Death is but our visible horizon, and our look ought always to be focused beyond it. We should never talk as if death were the end of ANYTHING[!]

To let our light shine, we must take care that we have no respect for riches: if we have none, there is no fear of our showing any. To treat the poor man with less attention or cordiality than the rich is to show ourselves the servants of Mammon.

A man in sorrow is in general far nearer God than a man in joy, Gladness may make a man forget his thanksgiving; misery drives him to his prayers. For we ARE not yet, we are only BECOMING. The endless day will at length dawn whose every throbbing moment will heave our hearts Godward; we shall scarce need to lift them up: now, there are two doorkeepers to the house of prayer, and Sorrow is more on the alert to open than her grandson Joy.

-George MacDonald, Sermon: Sorrow, The Pledge of Joy

Prayer is a difficult discipline for me. Since nearly every treatise, sermon, what have you on prayer typically begins with a long disclaimer stating how much the author sucks at praying, I believe I’m in numerous company.

An odd thing happened a couple weeks back though. I came down with a rather nasty flu and had a high fever for about two days. I only get sick about once a year and I don’t typially handle it well, as my wife will attest to. This time though, while moaning in agony on the couch, I found myself frequently turning to God. And not just asking that my sickness would go away. In fact, there was very little of that. I thanked and petitioned him for many things, hours on end. I can’t remember when the last time THAT was.

Now, MacDonald goes on to explain that the primary source of sorrow is the death of loved ones but I can’t help but think what I just described is related.