A Glass Darkly

Lists for the new year and decade

2010-01-03T10:18:00.002-06:00

It’s that time again, and as Bono, activist for justice and frontman for U2 notes, the lists—of resolutions and best and worst—have proliferated wildly.

If we have overindulged in anything these past several days, it is neither holiday ham nor American football; it is Top 10 lists. We have been stuffed full of them. Even in these self-restrained pages, it has been impossible to avoid the end-of-the-decade accountings of the 10 best such-and-suches and the 10 worst fill-in-the-blanks.

And so, in the spirit of rock star excess, I offer yet another.

Bono’s list is worth some reflection, and can be read here.

For a happy new year

2009-12-30T16:50:00.000-06:00

Sometimes we just need a reason to smile, and here is one. Even if you don't like fishing, or TV fishing shows, here is a video of bloopers that I found funny.

Stanley Fish, me, & public speaking

2009-12-23T15:12:00.001-06:00

Stanley Fish is an academician, a literary and legal scholar who teaches at Florida International University. I’ve heard several people refer to him as a postmodernist thinker, though it’s my understanding that he prefers to be known as an anti-foundationalist.

This is oversimplified, but for those not familiar with these terms, here is a quick definition. Foundationalists are convinced there is some value or ground or foundation that is available to all thinkers of all cultures upon which knowledge can be based. So, anti-foundationalists, like Fish, argue that no such ground exists, and so knowledge or ethics or ideas can only be explored within their specific cultural and historical context. As a result, anti-foundationalists are usually said to be pragmatists (whatever works is correct) and relativists (no final moral standards) though they argue that isn’t necessarily the case. Anyway, that’s the general idea.

In any case, Dr Fish writes a blog for The New York Times (which you can find here), and I always read his posts. I find them well written, often provocative, and always thoughtful. I may not always agree, but disagreeing with Stanley Fish is a bracing experience.

Anyway, Fish’s December 21, 2009 post, “’Tis the Season,” caught my attention both for the provocative conclusion he draws, and for the description of his experience of public speaking. The reason his description interests me is that he is describing my experience—exactly.

The speaker must worry about doing a good job.

With that in mind he or she will try to learn something about the nature of the institution, the likely make up of the audience—some audiences will regard a basic introduction of the topic as an insult while others will welcome it—the names of previous speakers in the series, the special concerns that may be animating university conversations. (Even with a lot of preparation, you never really know what you’re walking into.)

The occasion is, by definition, make or break. You only get one shot. The visit is short but you leave behind an impression that will last for quite a while. You will be judged by multiple measures. Did you seem well-prepared? Were you attentive to the needs of the audience? Did you present a coherent thesis supported by the relevant evidence? Did you speak clearly? Did you handle yourself well and honorably in the question-and-answer session? Were you responsive and courteous to everyone, even to those audience members who rose with the hope of handing you your head in a basket? Did you remember to thank everyone many times? It is clearly a pressure situation, and when it is over and you are heading out of town, you will be busily assessing your own performance and asking yourself, “How did I do?”

Now comes the curious part. If I have done badly, I feel badly. No surprise there. But if I’ve done well (at least in my estimation), I feel worse.

Why is that? I’m not quite sure, but I have a few notions. It may be a feeling that if I had stayed around for another 20 minutes, the jig would have been up; everyone would have seen through me; I got away just in the nick of time. It may be a feeling that my success was merely a piece of theater; there was nothing of substance in it. It may be a revulsion against hearing myself say the same old thing once again; someday—maybe tomorrow—I’ll run out of audiences. It may be a suspicion (actually more than that) that I am less interested in doing justice to my subject than in bringing glory to myself.

I thought it was just me.

(Be certain to read “’Tis the Season” and reflect on Dr Fish’s conclusion.)

Movie comment: Avatar (2009)

2009-12-21T08:26:00.000-06:00

Ross Douthat, an Op-ed columnist for the New York Times and film reviewer for National Review, saw Avatar, James Cameron’s latest movie epic and sees in it more of interest than the latest cinematic technical advances.

It’s fitting that James Cameron’s “Avatar” arrived in theaters at Christmastime. Like the holiday season itself, the science fiction epic is a crass embodiment of capitalistic excess wrapped around a deeply felt religious message. It’s at once the blockbuster to end all blockbusters, and the Gospel According to James.

But not the Christian Gospel. Instead, “Avatar” is Cameron’s long apologia for pantheism — a faith that equates God with Nature, and calls humanity into religious communion with the natural world.

You can read Douthat’s thoughtful piece, “Heaven and Nature,” here.

The view at street level

2009-12-17T14:40:00.003-06:00

We hear of events on the news from far away places, but it takes more than that to give us a sense of what life really is like there. Stories help, as do pictures—pictures like this one posted on the BBC online (which you can see here).

The caption was simple: “A Pakistani man pushes a cart on his way to the main street in Rawalpindi, Pakistan.” Rawalpindi is in the northern part of the country, just outside the capitol, Islamabad. The photo is attributed to Muhammed Muheisen/AP, and I am grateful to him for sharing what he saw in this slice of life with the rest of us.

Movie comment: Kenny (2006)

2009-12-15T15:25:00.004-06:00

Before our friends, Peter and Dawn, returned to Australia, we asked them for some movie recommendations. The first one they mentioned was Kenny, about a guy who runs a porta-potty (Australians call them portaloos) business named Splash Down. “A great comedy,” they said, “real Australian humor,” and they started laughing just remembering the film.

Kenny takes his job seriously, and as he points out, if he didn’t the rest of us would be in deep, well, deep in the product he specialized in collecting and carting away. “I don’t know what all the fuss is about,” Kenny says, “it’s 80% water and we’ve got chemicals to take care of the remaining 20.” At festivals he puts in long hours, cleaning the toilets, fishing out rings that were mistakenly dropped, and dealing with plugged and overflowing facilities. “There’s another classic example,” Kenny says wearily, “of someone having a two inch arsehole and us having installed only one inch piping.”

Kenny is hardly a great film, but it succeeds by being funny and believable. Filmed as a mock documentary, Kenny introduces us to his work, his family, and to the grand convention of waste management, The International Pumper & Cleaner Expo in Nashville, TN—which Kenny affectionately refers to as “Poo HQ.”

I don’t remember when I’ve laughed so hard at a film, only to be surprised when the second half turns into a poignant story of broken human beings trying to make their way through a broken world amidst sadly broken relationships. Kenny is the story of a likable and decent worker who does a job well, only to be despised by the people whom he serves—if they bother to notice him at all. “I’d love to be able to say ‘I plumb toilets’ and have someone say, ‘Now that is something I’ve always wanted to do.’” G. K. Chesterton published a Father Brown mystery where, if I remember correctly, the murderer had initially escaped noticed because he was dressed a postman so nobody noticed him as he walked away from the crime down a busy street. I wonder how many other people remain invisible to me?

[Kenny is rated PG-13.]

A smorgasbord of belief

2009-12-12T08:42:00.001-06:00

Many people in our pluralistic world mix and match their own personal blend of religious belief and ritual. A recent survey by The Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life (December 9, 2009), “Many Americans Mix Multiple Faiths,” which you can read here, lists some statistics to help make sense of the phenomenon.

The religious beliefs and practices of Americans do not fit neatly into conventional categories. A new poll by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that large numbers of Americans engage in multiple religious practices, mixing elements of diverse traditions. Many say they attend worship services of more than one faith or denomination -- even when they are not traveling or going to special events like weddings and funerals. Many also blend Christianity with Eastern or New Age beliefs such as reincarnation, astrology and the presence of spiritual energy in physical objects. And sizeable minorities of all major U.S. religious groups say they have experienced supernatural phenomena, such as being in touch with the dead or with ghosts.

The report is worth reading simply for the insight it brings to our culture. Christians who care about engaging their world with the gospel will have an added motivation to read and reflect on it.

The Pew Forum also provides a pdf version of the Report for free download.

It’s that time

2009-12-10T17:18:00.002-06:00

The pine tree outside my office window is heavy with snow. Boughs are bent under the weight, some now obscuring my view of the Goldfinches sitting on all six of the perches of the thistle feeder. A Chickadee hops along a branch, setting off into the air little puffs of snow like dust.

It is winter, a season when the radiator in our bedroom remains off most days, so that we need to burrow under covers heavy enough to feel substantial. This morning fingers of frost were drawn across the window, looking like a delicate etching on the glass.

Though only 4 o’clock the sunlight in dimming, ushering in another long evening when candles and music seem just the thing to warm the living room. The tree is in its normal corner, a lovely reminder that Advent is upon us, that nothing matters except that Jesus came and so as a result everything matters.

I grew up in a home where no Christmas tree was allowed. The season was deemed ruined by commercialism, no proof text commanding the celebration of Jesus’ birth could be located in Scripture, and the words of the ancient Hebrew prophet (Jeremiah 10:2-4) were preached as condemning any use of a decorated tree during Advent. Enjoying the season was considered as sign of what was called “carnality,” which meant that one’s religion was considered highly suspect.

How is it possible to be so religious that you miss the entire point of it?

As I write this a little sheep sits on my desk. (The entire story of that can be read and seen here, if that is, you have an account on Facebook.) He regards me solemnly, reminding me of my tendency to wander off as if I know what’s best. Which I don’t, of course—know what’s best I mean. I do wander, unfortunately.

It’s fully dark outside now, and a slight glow from the blue lights on the wreath hung above our front porch colors the snow on the porch roof. It’s time to shut off the music (Wilco), post this, and go downstairs for dinner. I hope we eat in front of the Christmas tree. Not in reaction to the silly fundamentalism of my upbringing, but as a reminder of grace.

Health care reform from a Christian perspective

2009-12-03T11:55:00.000-06:00

Bruce Wydick, Professor of Economics at the University of San Francisco, weighs in on the fractious debate over reforming health care costs.

Formerly the terrain of policy wonks and ivory tower academics, the recent health care debate in the United States has aroused public interest and angst more than any domestic policy issue in recent memory. I personally have been intrigued by this debate, both as an American economist and as an American Christian, and both of these factors make me a strong advocate of health care reform. I believe that the U.S. needs a strong version of health care reform to make our economy more efficient and our society more just.

Read the entire article, which appeared in Comment (published by Cardus), here.

Lamb Sliders at Crew

2009-11-30T09:45:00.006-06:00

Margie and I waited until autumn to take time for vacation, the cool days, changing colors, and leaf piles adding to the delight of time away from work. Leslie and John Eddy had invited us to camp at their lovely home in Cos Cob, CT, a village that melts into neighboring towns along the border with New York. A forty-minute train ride takes you into New York City, where we went to enjoy the creative and energetic Broadway production, “Stomp.”

Leslie works for Bloombergs—not the mayor but his firm—and sometimes is delayed long enough that they meet for dinner in Greenwich, a train stop just prior to Cos Cob. They generously took us to their favorite spot, twice in fact, a lovely restaurant, Crew (you can visit Crew online here). Each time we sat at the bar to talk and enjoy a leisurely meal, and it became quickly obvious that the people who gather there have over time come to know and appreciate one another. They’ve also gotten to know the owner (who doubles as the chef) and wait staff—producing an atmosphere of friendliness all too rare in American eating establishments. I was reminded more of a British pub, a place where neighbors can meet not just to eat and relax, but to talk and deepen friendships.

The first time John and Leslie took us to Crew, I ordered the “Seared Lamb Sliders.” (I ordered them the second time we went, too.) They came with a roasted shallot/garlic aioli on a fresh potato roll. I like lamb, and having suffered the fast food version wanted to know if the chef, owner Chris Geideman, could redeem the term.

He could and did. Oh, did he!

If you live on the East Coast, I recommend you eat at Crew. If you don’t live there, travel through and eat at Crew. If you can’t get there, well, life is unfair and you’ve received the short end of the stick.

If you do stop by Crew and the menu has changed, no worry: everything we tried there was superb. Kate, who keeps bar, makes a mean gin and tonic, by the way, which I also recommend, and which I think complement the Sliders nicely.

Crew manages to create the sort of neighborhood gathering place that celebrates good food and drink creatively prepared and presented, in an atmosphere designed to nourish friendships and conversation. And that is a good thing in such a broken world.

An unplanned hiatus

2009-11-19T16:09:00.000-06:00

I haven’t been able to post for several weeks. My time and energy needed to be given to people—some people I love dearly—and I simply had none left over to give to A Glass Darkly. Maybe someday that story can be told, but for now this explanation will have to suffice. If it seems insufficient, well, there it is.

I hope to begin posting again this next week.

Desperate for food

2009-10-30T12:19:00.002-05:00

In the early 1990s famine took hold in North Korea. The inefficient collective farms had never been able to feed the population and changing conditions caused China and Russia to cut back on the aid they had been supplying the regime. North Korea is a tightly controlled society and though no official figures are available (the regime ordered hospitals and physicians not to record starvation as a cause of death), it is estimated that up to a tenth of the population perished. That would amount to somewhere between 600,000 and 2.5 million people.

It has been said that people raised in Communist countries cannot fend for themselves, because they expect the government to take care of them. This was not true of many of the victims of the North Korean famine. When the public-distribution system was cut off, people tapped their deepest wells of creativity to feed themselves. They devised traps out of buckets and string to catch small animals in fields, and draped nets over their balconies to snare sparrows. They educated themselves in the nutritive properties of plants.

Women exchanged recipe tips: When making cornmeal, don’t throw out the husks, cob, leaves, and stem of the corn—throw everything into the grinder. Even if it isn’t nutritious, it is filling. Boil noodles for at least an hour to make them appear bigger. Add a few leaves of grass to soup to make it look as if it contained vegetables. Women would strip the sweet inner bark of pine trees to grind into a fine powder that could be used in place of flour.

North Koreans picked kernels of undigested corn out of the excrement of farm animals. Shipyard workers developed a technique by which they scraped the bottoms of the cargo holds where food had been stored, then spread the foul-smelling gunk on the roof to dry so that they could collect from it tiny grains of uncooked rice and other edibles.

The gathering and production of food was the focus of all enterprise. You woke up early to find your breakfast, and as soon as it was finished you thought about what to find for dinner. You slept during lunchtime because you were exhausted.

For more information read “The Good Cook: A battle against famine in North Korea” by Barbara Demick in The New Yorker (November 2, 2009) pp. 58-64.

You can find a audio-slide overview of Demick’s article here.

More than just talk

2009-10-20T11:55:00.000-05:00

What passes for conversation is often a predictable recitation of undeveloped thoughts and unexamined feelings, exchanged as the currency that buys rudimentary comfort and affirmation: “Know what I mean?” “Yeah.” This kind of two-stroke exchange, just a notch above grunting at each other—what a friend of mine wryly called “grooming behavior”—is hardly an evil in itself. Some of it may be necessary. But neither is it sufficient for sustaining intellectual vitality or fostering authentic intimacy. Conversation confined to such formulaic exchanges may simply serve as a narcotic to dull the hunger pangs of an undernourished spirit.

To “converse” originally meant to live among or together, or to act together, to foster community, to commune with. It was a large verb that implied public, cooperative, and deliberate action. When we converse, we act together toward a common end, and we act upon one another. Indeed, conversation is a form of activism—a political enterprise in the largest and oldest sense—a way of building and sustaining community. Consider, for instance, the large, long public conversations out of which have emerged the very structures and foundational documents that give shape to the social contracts we live by. A good conversationalist directs attention, inspires, corrects, affirms, and empowers others. It is a demanding vocation that involves attentiveness, skilled listening, awareness of one’s own interpretive frames, and a will to understand and discern what is true. It may be that we don’t often enough consider conversation as a form of social action, as a ministry, or as a spiritual discipline.

From: Caring for Words in a Culture of Lies by Marilyn Chandler McEntyre (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans; 2009) pp. 88-90.

Obama and the Nobel Peace Prize

2009-10-16T11:02:00.002-05:00

There has been an enormous amount of discussion about whether President Obama deserved to win the Nobel Peace Prize, and what his winning implies about the Prize itself. Some of the discussion has been thoughtful, but most, sadly but not surprisingly, has been shrill, cynical, and partisan.

It is always difficult to see with a perspective that is wider than one’s own interests. It’s hard, for example, to try to see myself as my wife, friends, and neighbors see me, since my perspective seems so natural, so obvious that I can’t believe everyone doesn’t share it. The same goes for how we see our nation. We assume everyone should see the U.S. and President Obama as we see them, and are surprised to discover they don’t necessarily share our perspective.

This is part of the issue that has arisen over President Obama’s receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, as historian David Kaiser explains in a superb essay, “Why Obama Won the Prize,” which you can read here.

(I am grateful to my good friend Dr Paul Waibel, professor of history at Belhaven College, Jackson, MS for alerting me to Kaiser’s essay.)

Jazz for kids (and the rest of us)

2009-10-15T10:28:00.003-05:00

My dear friend, Katie Bowser, lives in Nashville, YN, which is not the reason she is a musician. She is a musician because when God handed out gifts in songwriting and singing, he chose to skip a whole lot of otherwise nice people and pour an extra measure into Katie’s soul. That may seem unfair, and even be unfair by some measures, but then Katie chooses to generously share her gifts so it evens out.

For I’m not sure how long, Katie has been working on a way to introduce children to jazz, and now it’s ready for distribution. Coal Train Railroad is available here, and I urge you to buy a copy. Buy one for each child in your life. If there are no children in your life, get a new life.

The songs were written and performed by Katie, in collaboration with musical friends that love music as much as she does. It’s clever, and creative, and introduces children to a form of music that from its beginning sets hearts and imaginations free. “It’s music about kid stuff,” Katie writes, “juice, snuggling, naps, getting along, sharing—with music that we can all enjoy together.”

So click here and order. The children in your life will thank you, and you can thank me.

(They have a wonderful special on right now that is great for Christmas, but even if you miss that, Coal Train Railroad is worth getting.)

New word needed

2009-10-13T11:55:00.010-05:00

OK, I need a new word.

Here's the definition: when one's inbox is so full that by the time an email is answered the sender has not only forgotten they ever sent it, they have moved on in their life enough as to be no longer interested in the topic.

Maybe I need more than one word.

One for that situation. Another for the email response that no longer connects with reality. Another for the sort of emailer I am.

One more thing: if I am the only person with this problem, kindly keep that information to yourself.

Movie Comment: Julie and Julia (2009)

2009-10-08T11:55:00.001-05:00

I watched this film with my best friend and wife, Margie, and felt we were celebrating good things the entire time. Celebrating what Christians call God’s "common grace," the amazing goodness he richly spreads throughout creation for our enjoyment. Goodness experienced in relationships, sex, food and wine, and finding a sense of calling in the myriad diversions and distractions of life.

Directed by Nora Ephron from her own screenplay, Julie and Julia is an honest look at joy and disappointment in the ordinary ups and downs of life. Meryl Street plays Julia Child, the larger than life brashly endearing woman who single-handedly transformed how America cooked when she published Mastering the Art of French Cooking in 1961. Her love of food and love for her husband, Paul Child, played wonderfully by Stanley Tucci is simply infectious. In 2002 a young woman, bored with her corporate cubicle, decided to cook through Child’s cookbook in a year (524 recipes in 365 days) and blog the experience. Julie Powell’s (played by Amy Adams) blog later was published as Julie & Julia: My Year of Cooking Dangerously (2007).

I’ve always loved the opening to the Christian Story, where God not only calls the universe into existence in a riot of beauty, but then creates beings in his likeness to share his appreciation of all that is good. “The Lord God,” the Scriptures record, placed his newly formed creatures “in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it” (Genesis 2:15). Keeping it involved tenderly caring for it as the Lord’s, and therefore precious. Working it can be translated “cultivating it,” a term that is related to human culture. And so, as sons of Adam and daughters of Eve, to this day we find fulfillment in cultivating the whole continuum of life and culture, whether land, relationships, or meals, finding in our obedience a whisper of the shalom God intended for us.

Julie and Julia is a celebration of this reality. Of the graciousness of grace, of how loving marriages (not perfect ones), a love of good food shared in meaningful community, and finding a sense of significance and calling all lead to glimpses of delight too good to be missed.

A prayer of confession

2009-10-06T11:55:00.002-05:00

God, my Father.

You asked for my hands, that you might use them for your purpose. I gave them for a moment, then withdrew them, for the work was hard, inconvenient, and mundane. You asked for my mouth to speak out against injustice. I gave you a whisper that I might not be accused of being aligned with the wrong party or ideology. You asked for my eyes to see the pain of poverty. I closed them, for I did not want to see, choosing instead to believe the myth that all that really tried would be fine financially. You asked for my life, that you might work through me for your glory. I gave a small part that I might not get too involved, because I am busy.

Lord, forgive my calculated efforts to serve you—only when it is convenient for me to do so, only in those places where it is safe to do so, and only with those who make it easy to do so.

Father, forgive me, renew me, send me out as a useable instrument, that I might take seriously the meaning of the gospel.

For your Son Jesus’ sake, who withheld nothing.

Amen

Source: adapted from the Prayer of Confession in the liturgy of Trinity Presbyterian Church (Rochester, MN) on September 6, 2009.

Injustice in the financial mess

2009-10-06T10:00:00.004-05:00

If there is one truth to emerge from the financial crisis of the past year it is that no one knows for certain all that went wrong, how to make it right, and how to fix things so that a similar thing won't happen again. There are theories and ideas, proposals and strategies, some better and some worse, but that is all. And though that is not nothing, it calls for humility. A great deal of humility.

The complexity of the global financial markets is breathtaking, possible only in a world in which high speed computers and modern communication travel at virtually the speed of light. It is system that has produced much prosperity--India proves that--and for that we can be thankful. On the other hand, it also is a world in which injustice does not merely occasionally occur but is, at times, deeply systemic. For a video presentation by the New York Times that helps make an example of the complexity and unfairness clear, watch this.

Such injustice will never be adequately regulated (by either market or government) without an embrace of humility as a virtue more precious that gold.

Change in Iran, at cost

2009-10-01T11:55:00.000-05:00

Throughout history authoritarian and despotic regimes have always worked hard to maintain the appearance of legitimacy. Instead of simply doing away with a regime’s enemies in the dead of night, for example, the authorities may insist on judicial proceedings, with indictments, trials, judges, and attorneys. When justice is systematically perverted, however, show-trials can begin to erode a regime’s popular support rather than paralyze its citizenry with fear.

Laura Secor reports (read her piece here) on how the show-trials in Iran are not having their intended effect among the Iranian people.

In the grotesque pageant of Iran’s show trials, former high officials—hollow-eyed, dressed in prison pajamas, and flanked by guards in uniform—sit in rows, listening to one another’s self-denunciations. Since the disputed Presidential elections of June 12^th, about a hundred reformist politicians, journalists, student activists, and other dissidents have been accused of colluding with Western powers to overthrow the Islamic Republic. This month, a number of the accused have made videotaped confessions. But the spectacle has found a subversive afterlife on the Internet. One image that has gone viral is a split frame showing two photographs of former Vice-President Mohammad Ali Abtahi. Before his arrest, on June 16^th, he is a rotund, smiling cleric; in court on August 1^st, he is drawn and sweat-soaked, his face a mask of apprehension. The juxtaposition belies the courtroom video, making the point that the only genuine thing about Abtahi’s confession is that it was coerced through torture…

The indictments prepared by the public prosecutor are almost surreally obtuse. Before the election, one indictment claims, Western governments, foundations, and individuals joined forces with corrupt Iranians in an attempt to overthrow the Islamic Republic and institute a regime compliant with American designs. The nefarious plotters engaged in “exposing cases of violations of human rights,” training reporters in “gathering information,” and “presenting full information on the 2009 electoral candidates.” Apparently, the Iranian citizen is meant to consider it self-evident that the country’s national interest depends on concealing human-rights abuses, censoring the news, and obfuscating the electoral process…

And so a spectacle that was meant to produce compliance and terror has instead stoked fury and derision. The regime has lost control of the political discussion within Iran, which is focusing on the abuse of prisoners rather than on the perfidy of foreigners or the futility of resistance…

In today’s Iran, the interrogator, not the repenter, has become the object of rage and ridicule. Recanting under pressure, Abrahamian [author of Tortured Confessions] told me, is now seen as a sign not of weakness or treachery but, rather, of “being human.” The display of systemic cruelty is not chilling but galvanizing…

Source: “The Iran Show” by Laura Secor in “The Talk of the Town” in The New Yorker (August 31, 2009) pp. 25-26.

When you're hungry and uncreative

2009-09-29T11:55:00.001-05:00

A new website has appeared that might be of interest for busy people who are hungry, don't want to eat out, but who don't have time to go grocery shopping.

myfridgefood.com allows you to simply log on, use a handy check-off list to note what is already in your refrigerator, and find recipes that use only those ingredients.

And if the recipe that results happens to be unhealthy? Well, it's your fridge.

Ten myths exposed as false

2009-09-24T11:55:00.000-05:00

The millennial generation is usually defined as those born since the late 1970s. Now, two authors (in a piece you can read here) expose ten myths about this generation as false:

1. Young people think and behave the same at all times. One generation is just like the one before it and the one that follows.

2. Millennials are narcissistic, self-indulgent kids who think they are entitled to everything.

3. Millennials volunteer and serve because they are “forced” to or are trying to polish their college application resume.

4. Millennials became Democrats and liberals because they are hero worshipers of Barack Obama.

5. Millennials will become more conservative as they age.

6. Millennials, like all young people, are apathetic and uninterested in voting.

7. Like Boomers and Gen-Xers before them, Millennials are cynical and disillusioned by the problems facing them and America.

8. Millennials care only about what happens in their own country, community, and lives and not on what goes on in the rest of the world.

9. Millennials, like all generations, are rebels who are hostile to civic institutions and government.

10. Millennials are more focused on trivialities such as celebrities than on the big issues facing America.

The authors, Morley Winograd and Michael D. Hais, have written Millennial Makeover: MySpace, YouTube, and the Future of American Politics published by Rutgers University Press.

Source: Thanks to my good friend Kevin Offner for alerting me to this.

Ladybugs

2009-09-23T11:55:00.000-05:00

This was filmed in the mountains of Colorado during the annual ladybug swarm.

5D and EX1 Lady Bug Swarm from Michael Ramsey on Vimeo.

Defeating Jihadists but refusing their religious war

2009-09-22T11:55:00.000-05:00

Reza Aslan has published two books. Both are well written (not for nothing does Aslan teach creative writing at the University of California), clearly accessible to any interested reader. Both address topics of great importance at the beginning of the 21^st century. Both allow most Americans (or Westerners) insight into a world that is usually outside their daily existence. Both challenge some assumptions that tend to be held by many Americans. And for many Americans, both are written from a perspective that they seldom hear expressed with such care and thoughtfulness.

Aslan (love that name!) ethnic heritage is Persian, though Americans often mistake him for being an Arab. His family moved from Iran to the U.S., where they became proud citizens of America. Reza Aslan is also a Muslim, concerned that the West not only understand the beliefs and practices of Islam but be able to distinguish the vast majority of mainstream Muslims from the Jihadist thugs that draw the most attention in the media.

Aslan’s first book, No God But God: The origins, evolution and future of Islam is must reading.

In his second book, How to Win a Cosmic War, Aslan does three things. First, he traces the development of the Jihadist movement which gave rise to 9/11, the War on Terror, and so much more that dominates the daily news. Second, he helps us see the Western, especially the U.S. response through Muslim eyes. And third he argues that we must refuse the most basic assumption of the Jihadists, namely that this is a cosmic religious war, a war between Islam and Christianity. If we fail at this, Aslan argues persuasively that we will needlessly alienate the vast majority of Muslims who are repulsed by Jihadist terrorism, we will inadvertently reinforce Jihadist recruitment among young disaffected Muslims, and we will make it more difficult to bring these criminals to justice.

But I’ll let Aslan speak for himself:

This book is, above all else, a proclamation: the War on Terror, conceived by the previous American administration as a cosmic contest between the forces of good and evil for the future of civilization, is over. It is time to strip this ideological conflict of its religious connotations, to reject the religiously polarizing rhetoric of our leaders and theirs, to focus on the material matters at stake, and to address the earthly issues that always lie behind the cosmic impulse. For although the grievances of the hijackers may have been symbolic, though they may have been merely causes to rally around, to the hundreds of millions of Muslims around the world who watched the towers fall—who were, in fact, the intended audience of that theatrical display of violence—they are nonetheless legitimate grievances and must be addressed as such. The Palestinians really are suffering under Israeli occupation. Arab dictators are in fact being propped up by U.S. policies. The Muslim world truly does have reason to feel under attack by a “crusading” West. Addressing these grievances may not satisfy Osama bin Laden and his fellow cosmic warriors, whose sights are set beyond this world. But it will bring their cosmic war back down to earth, where it can be confronted more constructively. It will take away the appeal of the Global Jihadist movement and loosen the ties that have bound so many young, disaffected Muslims together under a master narrative of oppression and injustice. Most of all, it will deny Jihadist ideologues their principal argument that the War on Terror is, in fact, a war against Islam. Because in the end, there is only one way to win a cosmic war: refuse to fight in it.

Aslan’s argument needs to be heard, discussed, and seriously considered. Even at those occasional points where I disagree with Aslan I am extremely glad I have listened to him.

Source: How to Win a Cosmic War: God, Globalization, and the End of the War on Terror by Reza Aslan (New York, NY: Random House; 2009) p. 11.

A truly informed, thoughtful faith

2009-09-17T11:55:00.000-05:00

Not long ago I visited a friend who said that he had recently been convicted about the fact that he’d not really “checked into the veracity” of his Christian beliefs. So he had recently made it something of a project to look into the evidence for and against the Christian tradition into which he’d been born and raised. He wanted to take a step back and see whether or not the stuff he’d been raised with was actually true. I asked him what he’d been reading. He pointed me to a collection of about eight to ten books on the evidence for and against Christian belief on his shelf—not bad for a busy professional with a young family. But upon closer examination, I noticed that all of the books had Christian authors.

“These books are all written by Christians,” I pointed out.

“Yep. I’ve been making apologetics a sort of hobby. I especially like the stuff by Craig, Strobel, and Geisler.”

“Do you suppose there are non-Christians writing on this topic?”

“I suppose there probably are.”

“Do you know who they are?”

“No. I haven’t really looked for that sort of thing.”

Now I don’t mean to suggest that what my friend was doing is a bad idea. There’s nothing wrong with trying to shore up your faith with evidence. There’s a wealth of very good material out there on the rationality of Christian belief, and Christians do themselves a favor by getting acquainted with it. But to think of this as a genuine checking into the veracity of Christian belief is a bit of a stretch. It’s a bit like checking into the claims of “holistic medicine” by reading only those studies written by its practitioners and ignoring the critical treatment of these practices in “mainstream” medical journals.

Source: I Told Me So: Self-deception and the Christian life by Gregg A. Ten Elshof (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing; 2009) pp. 34-35.