Had a long talk with a Muslim man the other day -- 3-4 hours of delightful, respectful, in-depth discussion of our various positions. Questions were freely made and respectfully answered, friendly concern not to offend each other, but no sense of "walking on egg-shells" or either side being easily offended.
I came away from the encounter with several thoughts, listed below. In summary, he claimed:
* one cannot be both a terrorist and a Muslim. If you are one you must forswear the other -- that Islam and the Koran teach that killing others or yourself goes against everything that is holy and good,
* the idea of "jihad" in the Koran has nothing to do with forcing others to become Muslim, or holy war against those who are not Muslim. Rather it has to do with the internal/spiritual war we all fight in our own hearts against sin and evil,
* that starting even with its founder, Islam has been willing to live in peace with other faiths -- that the Ottoman Empire was quite willing to allow those it conquered to continue in their respective beliefs and practices,
* and that Christians and Muslims have a lot in common when it comes to believing that the world was created by God -- that the atheistic scientist is foolish when he claims the design of the world can be explained by accidental forces.
In addition, we spent a good amount of our time discussing the differences in theology between Jewish/Christian thought and Muslim. He held that Muslims believe:
* that Allah created man/woman to be sinful from the beginning -- and that this explains how we can be so sinful today, and why it is not surprising to Allah that we are sinful,
* that sin needs to be opposed in our lives every day all the time,
* that each individual fears Allah, but also is optimistic that he will be merciful in the judgment,
* that no one can know for sure whether or not he will be embraced by Allah until the judgment day,
* that no amount of good work in life can offset our sinful selves,
* that to think that one can be "saved" is actually a formula for potential passivity and moral degradation.
I told him about:
* how we were made good but fell through disobedience,
* how (since we cannot do enough good work in life to offset even the smallest of sins), we need someone to pay that price for us,
* how Jesus' substitution of Himself for me fully paid for me,
* and how while I COULD sit the rest of my life in my house doing nothing and still be acceptable to God, I am motivated to do in life now because of LOVE for the God who saved me.
There were several of these ideas that were new to the other --
I had never heard that Muslims disavow violent action on behalf of Allah. I told him several times that it would help a great deal if Muslim leaders around the world would stand and condemn terrorism in the name of Islam. He seemed to think they did already, but eventually agreed that there could be far more done along this line.
I had never heard that Muslims believe man was created by design to be sinful. This seemed to me to attribute evil to God, something that would lead to a loss of the category of "good" altogether. It turns out that it was news to him that Christians hold to a good creation gone bad, and thus have no need to attribute the source of evil to the Creator.
He had not considered that it could be possible to be out from under (my words, not his) the weight of sin in life. This, I believe, is the most important of all the things discussed, and I hope that it will haunt him the rest of his days. Christian hope looks quite different from his perspective: it seems irresponsible and passive. With genuine and kind curiosity he wanted to know if our beliefs allowed us to do nothing the rest of our lives...and I could see what he meant. This thought is hard for Christians to believe as well. Not because either of us are incapable of understanding, but because the idea is so impossible. How can we not fear? How can we not want to do good in the world? How can we not want to make things better -- even better for God? Of course we DO, but we do so now without fear, and BECAUSE of His love freely given, rather than in hopes that His love will BE given. This is the radical nature of the Christian's motivation. No other way of thinking allows for such radical and complete unity with God -- and it is accomplished without the slightest notion of pride, since it had nothing to do with us. This is hard for anyone to believe, but it is what makes the good news good.
We parted friends and invited him to return to discuss further any and all questions. He accepted and wants to cook us dinner. I need to read the Koran.
Tuesday, December 08, 2009
What if great minds of the past could be called on to address present concerns? Why, that's just what books are for!
What if we could get, for example, Ronald Reagan to speak directly to Barak Obama and the democrats who support government-run health care? Well we can! That's why we record speeches!
Here is a 10 minute speech that Ronald Reagan made in the early 60s. Give it a listen, and let's talk about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0NWqvRidlk&feature=related
What if we could get, for example, Ronald Reagan to speak directly to Barak Obama and the democrats who support government-run health care? Well we can! That's why we record speeches!
Here is a 10 minute speech that Ronald Reagan made in the early 60s. Give it a listen, and let's talk about it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0NWqvRidlk&feature=related
Thursday, November 19, 2009
A word on Capital Punishment
Q: Is the scriptural prohibition against murder necessarily a prohibition against capital punishment?
In a civilized society, guilt and innocence of crimes is decided on by a justice system, rather than by the offended party. To say that it is wrong for one to murder is not the same thing as saying that a murderer should be executed by the state.
Murder is the taking of a life for personal reasons: revenge, robbery, general hatred, personal offense, et c. Capital punishment is one in a long list of penalties that can be handed down by the courts in response to legal criminal convictions.
In the former, the person doing the killing is being faithless: he believes that justice will not be done (taking it into his own hands); or that the victim has something he wants (money, property) that he desires but can’t have as long as the victim is alive; or that the victim represents some one or group that the murderer despises. In any of these cases, the commandment not to murder is a commandment to despise faithlessness: God is the one who brings justice, not I; God is the one who provides for our needs, not I, and God is the one who calls us to love even our enemies.
The arguments against capital punishment go that if we are not to murder individually, how can we justify killing another through the courts? Is that not simply murder as well, only through the government? If revenge is a bad motive for taking a life, isn’t doing it through the court system still revenge? And if murder is wrong for one because it is faithless, isn’t it wrong on the governmental scale for the same reason? Both ends the life of a person made in the image of God.
There are several reasons why these are not the same.
First, it is not revenge when the government executes a convicted criminal. Revenge is the action of the offended party – justice is the action of the government. The governmental court system is in place to protect the rights of the accused as well as to protect the rights of the offended parties. Just as it is unjust to allow victims to seek revenge, it is unjust to allow offenders to commit crimes without having to be called to account for them. In order for this justice to come about, dis-interested parties have to be called in to consider both sides of the issue, and we have decided that it is important that the prosecution prove (beyond a reasonable doubt) its case against the defendant – that is, that innocence is assumed. If the courts have convicted one of a capital crime, it is the result of justice, not revenge.
Second, it is not inherently faithless to execute a convicted criminal. If God has set the death penalty as just in the Old Testament, it needs to be proved that it is no longer just in the time of the New Testament.
Third, God has expressly said in the New Testament that we Christians are to obey – even submit to – the governing authorities (Rom 13:1-7). In verse 4 Paul writes, “For he (the authority) is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” This sword implies deadly force, that is, capital punishment.
It can be argued that while the governments are God’s servants to bring and keep justice, there may well be punishments that are cruel, or unjust inherently. Cannot punishments be changed to be more humane, and couldn’t it be argued that capital punishment is in need of change for these reasons?
This is a worthy question, and goes beyond the question of whether or not murder and execution are the same thing. What we need to argue here are (barring offense) what the reasons are in favor of capital punishment.
Many argue that capital punishment is indeed civilized vengeance. The courts side with the offended party, and in so doing allow that offended party to kill out of hatred. But this position ignores the spiritual aspect of the issue. Assuming that guilt has been rightly discovered by the courts, and that the convict’s sentence is death, the system is actually giving a message to the convict on two levels: first that his crime is worthy of the supreme penalty – that is, that our society is agreed that his sort of crime requires this sort of response for justice to be accomplished as best we can in this fallen world; and secondly that he is a soul, and that there are actually worse things than death that can happen to a person. If we were to give you the impression that your crime were not this serious, we would be doing damage to your eternal soul. If a dog injures a neighbor, the dog is killed – this is done so that the dog won’t injure anyone else. If a man murders a neighbor, it may be also good to end his life so that he won’t kill again, but that theoretically could be accomplished by a life sentence without parole, so why the death penalty? Because there is a person’s soul at stake – he needs to know that this murder is a sin against God and that he needs to repent and get right with God before he leaves this earth. The death penalty can do what no other penalty can do: force a convict to meet his own mortality. He knows when his life will end, while the rest of us can only surmise. He has only so many days, weeks, months left to put his soul in order. To confess, repent, and be forgiven. And THIS is more important to us as a society than revenge.
It can be argued that our culture is no longer Christian, so we cannot count on our civil secularized courts to think in spiritual categories any more. However, this is not a case against capital punishment any more at all – we should call our courts back to Christian thinking on all fronts, not just the question of capital punishment. We should be considering the souls of our drug dealers, our corporate embezzlers, and our domestic disturbers as well, fitting punishments that call them to consider the need for repentance, restoration, and apologies as well – it is just that the punishment must fit the crime. If you steal from your company, you should be required to restore all that was stolen and then some, PLUS have to right any broken relationships. There should be punishments that fit the other crimes as well, punishments other than imprisonment, which should be kept for the unrepentant. There are those who would grow from being forced to spend the next number of years working to pay back those he stole from. Or be forced to serve the family he offended.
But in the case of capital crimes – when one person is murdered by another – the penalty has to be as serious as the crime. This is not said with the vindictiveness of a victim, but with the disengaged wisdom of the community. There are some crimes that we won’t tolerate as a society, and the perpetrators of those crimes should know ahead of time that the punishment is death. This supports the last point in favor of capital punishment, that the death penalty can be a deterrent. It is true that many murders are committed in the heat of passion. However, many more would be planned and concluded if there were no fear of death.
Q: Is the scriptural prohibition against murder necessarily a prohibition against capital punishment?
In a civilized society, guilt and innocence of crimes is decided on by a justice system, rather than by the offended party. To say that it is wrong for one to murder is not the same thing as saying that a murderer should be executed by the state.
Murder is the taking of a life for personal reasons: revenge, robbery, general hatred, personal offense, et c. Capital punishment is one in a long list of penalties that can be handed down by the courts in response to legal criminal convictions.
In the former, the person doing the killing is being faithless: he believes that justice will not be done (taking it into his own hands); or that the victim has something he wants (money, property) that he desires but can’t have as long as the victim is alive; or that the victim represents some one or group that the murderer despises. In any of these cases, the commandment not to murder is a commandment to despise faithlessness: God is the one who brings justice, not I; God is the one who provides for our needs, not I, and God is the one who calls us to love even our enemies.
The arguments against capital punishment go that if we are not to murder individually, how can we justify killing another through the courts? Is that not simply murder as well, only through the government? If revenge is a bad motive for taking a life, isn’t doing it through the court system still revenge? And if murder is wrong for one because it is faithless, isn’t it wrong on the governmental scale for the same reason? Both ends the life of a person made in the image of God.
There are several reasons why these are not the same.
First, it is not revenge when the government executes a convicted criminal. Revenge is the action of the offended party – justice is the action of the government. The governmental court system is in place to protect the rights of the accused as well as to protect the rights of the offended parties. Just as it is unjust to allow victims to seek revenge, it is unjust to allow offenders to commit crimes without having to be called to account for them. In order for this justice to come about, dis-interested parties have to be called in to consider both sides of the issue, and we have decided that it is important that the prosecution prove (beyond a reasonable doubt) its case against the defendant – that is, that innocence is assumed. If the courts have convicted one of a capital crime, it is the result of justice, not revenge.
Second, it is not inherently faithless to execute a convicted criminal. If God has set the death penalty as just in the Old Testament, it needs to be proved that it is no longer just in the time of the New Testament.
Third, God has expressly said in the New Testament that we Christians are to obey – even submit to – the governing authorities (Rom 13:1-7). In verse 4 Paul writes, “For he (the authority) is God’s servant to do you good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for he does not bear the sword for nothing. He is God’s servant, an agent of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.” This sword implies deadly force, that is, capital punishment.
It can be argued that while the governments are God’s servants to bring and keep justice, there may well be punishments that are cruel, or unjust inherently. Cannot punishments be changed to be more humane, and couldn’t it be argued that capital punishment is in need of change for these reasons?
This is a worthy question, and goes beyond the question of whether or not murder and execution are the same thing. What we need to argue here are (barring offense) what the reasons are in favor of capital punishment.
Many argue that capital punishment is indeed civilized vengeance. The courts side with the offended party, and in so doing allow that offended party to kill out of hatred. But this position ignores the spiritual aspect of the issue. Assuming that guilt has been rightly discovered by the courts, and that the convict’s sentence is death, the system is actually giving a message to the convict on two levels: first that his crime is worthy of the supreme penalty – that is, that our society is agreed that his sort of crime requires this sort of response for justice to be accomplished as best we can in this fallen world; and secondly that he is a soul, and that there are actually worse things than death that can happen to a person. If we were to give you the impression that your crime were not this serious, we would be doing damage to your eternal soul. If a dog injures a neighbor, the dog is killed – this is done so that the dog won’t injure anyone else. If a man murders a neighbor, it may be also good to end his life so that he won’t kill again, but that theoretically could be accomplished by a life sentence without parole, so why the death penalty? Because there is a person’s soul at stake – he needs to know that this murder is a sin against God and that he needs to repent and get right with God before he leaves this earth. The death penalty can do what no other penalty can do: force a convict to meet his own mortality. He knows when his life will end, while the rest of us can only surmise. He has only so many days, weeks, months left to put his soul in order. To confess, repent, and be forgiven. And THIS is more important to us as a society than revenge.
It can be argued that our culture is no longer Christian, so we cannot count on our civil secularized courts to think in spiritual categories any more. However, this is not a case against capital punishment any more at all – we should call our courts back to Christian thinking on all fronts, not just the question of capital punishment. We should be considering the souls of our drug dealers, our corporate embezzlers, and our domestic disturbers as well, fitting punishments that call them to consider the need for repentance, restoration, and apologies as well – it is just that the punishment must fit the crime. If you steal from your company, you should be required to restore all that was stolen and then some, PLUS have to right any broken relationships. There should be punishments that fit the other crimes as well, punishments other than imprisonment, which should be kept for the unrepentant. There are those who would grow from being forced to spend the next number of years working to pay back those he stole from. Or be forced to serve the family he offended.
But in the case of capital crimes – when one person is murdered by another – the penalty has to be as serious as the crime. This is not said with the vindictiveness of a victim, but with the disengaged wisdom of the community. There are some crimes that we won’t tolerate as a society, and the perpetrators of those crimes should know ahead of time that the punishment is death. This supports the last point in favor of capital punishment, that the death penalty can be a deterrent. It is true that many murders are committed in the heat of passion. However, many more would be planned and concluded if there were no fear of death.
Sunday, November 15, 2009
Is history repeating itself? Iran and Iraq.
This morning, the AP reports that Iran is unhappy with President Obama, saying that he is just as bad as George W. Bush, and that all his rhetoric about change was just a lie (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575187,00.html). It seems that another middle east country is threatening the world with weapons of mass destruction, and the U.S. is standing in their way. Once again we hear that there are UN sanctions, funds being frozen, weapons inspectors denied access... Our present President is going to find himself in the real world his predecessor had to deal with, only this time he has a weakened country and world backing him up. In his work undermining the strength of America in the world (politically, economically, troop morale-wise), he has actually undermined the very strength he needs now to use. It is easy to be a radical community organizer, "power to the people!" when the real power and responsibility rests on those evil "other guys" that they think they can hate with impugnity. But when that power is actually transferred to the community organizers, and they dilute it (underfunding and vision with Gitmo and Afghanistan, economic disasters at home like the health plan, TARP funds, et c), they may find that what they really need is the very power of a consolidated country, a strong military, and the robust free-market underneath it all -- they may find that what they really need is respect, not love, from the rest of the world.
What if we are going through the 2002 Iraq conflict all over again with Iran? Will we have to invade? What would keep us from it? If it unfolds as the last did, we say: we cannot afford to have WMDs in the hands of rogue nations like Iraq/Iran, so we need UN sanctions. When they don't work (the people suffer while the leaders find ways to sell their oil on the black market to willing countries like France and Russia: Oil-for-food scandal, remember?) someone will have to enforce the UN sanctions. Who will do it except the US? In order to keep the WMDs out of the hands of terrorists, or to keep them from being a threat to Israel, we will have to require proof (Iran is denying it has such weapons, sound familiar?), and if Iraq/Iran will not allow us to confirm that they don't have WMDs, we will have to use military force in some way. What will this do to Obama's reputation as being different from "W"? The country will have to go to war again, and many will have to apologize to Dick Chaney. That will be a bitter pill to swallow for the left.
This morning, the AP reports that Iran is unhappy with President Obama, saying that he is just as bad as George W. Bush, and that all his rhetoric about change was just a lie (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,575187,00.html). It seems that another middle east country is threatening the world with weapons of mass destruction, and the U.S. is standing in their way. Once again we hear that there are UN sanctions, funds being frozen, weapons inspectors denied access... Our present President is going to find himself in the real world his predecessor had to deal with, only this time he has a weakened country and world backing him up. In his work undermining the strength of America in the world (politically, economically, troop morale-wise), he has actually undermined the very strength he needs now to use. It is easy to be a radical community organizer, "power to the people!" when the real power and responsibility rests on those evil "other guys" that they think they can hate with impugnity. But when that power is actually transferred to the community organizers, and they dilute it (underfunding and vision with Gitmo and Afghanistan, economic disasters at home like the health plan, TARP funds, et c), they may find that what they really need is the very power of a consolidated country, a strong military, and the robust free-market underneath it all -- they may find that what they really need is respect, not love, from the rest of the world.
What if we are going through the 2002 Iraq conflict all over again with Iran? Will we have to invade? What would keep us from it? If it unfolds as the last did, we say: we cannot afford to have WMDs in the hands of rogue nations like Iraq/Iran, so we need UN sanctions. When they don't work (the people suffer while the leaders find ways to sell their oil on the black market to willing countries like France and Russia: Oil-for-food scandal, remember?) someone will have to enforce the UN sanctions. Who will do it except the US? In order to keep the WMDs out of the hands of terrorists, or to keep them from being a threat to Israel, we will have to require proof (Iran is denying it has such weapons, sound familiar?), and if Iraq/Iran will not allow us to confirm that they don't have WMDs, we will have to use military force in some way. What will this do to Obama's reputation as being different from "W"? The country will have to go to war again, and many will have to apologize to Dick Chaney. That will be a bitter pill to swallow for the left.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
I have an uncontrollable urge to tell everyone about this video (http://www.pjtv.com/v/2235), partly because I wish I had written it. Whatever you think of Sarah Palin, we are in a war for the truth. Do we as a culture put up with irrational, emotional personal attacks in the place of ordered debate? Does even that question seem to have no traction in your soul? Has it lost its appeal? Does something in your heart sink when it is asked, knowing that it will go nowhere and accomplish nothing?
How can this be? Are we so deaf to the call of the truth that we have resigned ourselves to a culture that runs on power instead of logic? Could it be that we are so overwhelmed that we think the only approach is cynicism toward all things reasonable?
This is just the place that the devil wants us to occupy -- no ability to think clearly or willingness to throw the weight of our lives and energies behind a the good where we find it. What if we were such moral cowards that we would rather be in with the hip crowd than take a stand for the true and the good when we find them?
I have been reading Saul Alinsky's book "Rules for Radicals," and he is an amoral, pragmatic, shell of a human being who will do or say anything (and teach others to do the same) in order to achieve power for the people he represents. This is ALWAYS the problem: the people you would LIKE to have lead you are people of character, but the only people who can rise to power are those who are willing to compromise character to achieve power. What hope do those who are NOT willing to do anything have? When it comes to "the Chicago way," Sean Connery's character in The Untouchables says, "if they pull a knife, you pull a gun; if they put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue...how far are you willing to go?" That's the question, and in the movie it seems like a call to courage in the face of opposition -- but can we fight the devil on his own terms and not lose our souls?
The plan put forth by the Cloward-Piven bunch is being put into practice all around us. (If you don't know about the Cloward-Piven strategy, read about it here: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967) The idea is to bring the present government down by overloading the system wherever it is weakest. The applications of this approach are everywhere:
Health care: because 20-40 million Americans don't have health insurance (and somehow folks are convinced everyone has a right to insurance), let's revamp the system for all 300 million of us and pay for it all through the government. This destroys the medical care for everyone, and incidentally crashes the economy. We were vulnerable because the country generally accepts the idea that the government should provide health care.
Housing: because a small percentage of the population don't own their own houses (because their finances are such that they are bad loan risks), direct the nation's banks to lower their standards and raise the loan risk level and loan requirements so that we can get everyone his own house. This overextends banks (on the promise that the Fed government will back defaults), loans fail, foreclosures ramp up, banks are bought out by the very government that said they'd back them, house prices fall, owners find they have negative equity, savings are lost, and the economy crashes. We were vulnerable because the country bought the idea that everyone should be given what they haven't earned (for whatever reason).
Voter registration: because it seems there are a lot of people who have not (for whatever reason) registered to vote, community organizers launch grass-roots projects to get everyone registered. Sounds good, but the real reason is not to get general registrations (as they tell the Republicans knowing it will stop their opposition), or to target groups that will vote Democrat (as they tell the Democrats, knowing it will stop their opposition), but that it will bring the election system to a collapse. The organizers know the voter registration offices are woefully understaffed, thus vulnerable to an overwhelming flood of paperwork that will lead to choke-points all through the system, bringing it all to a standstill. The registrations sent in by ACORN "volunteers" by the thousands were often frauds, but it takes time to track them each down to confirm. Not only does this slow the entire process of voting, it gives the enemies of the system credibility when they claim voter fraud -- "just look at all those illegitimate ballots!" they cry, knowing that they sent them in themselves. We are vulnerable precisely because of our conscientiousness.
In fact, we are vulnerable to these sorts of attacks because we want to be "good people" at every turn. Our very consciences are being used against us. What are people like Sarah Palin to do when they are attacked for being horrible, nasty, self-centered people who don't care about those without health care, housing, or the vote? Honest people want to address the accusations and redress any wrong they think they have caused -- and this is their mistake: they think the accusations must be somewhat true or they wouldn't be so raised. But dishonest people USE this honesty against them.
Why DON'T we expect Bill Clinton, Charles Rangel, Dan Rather, or Barney Frank to be ashamed of themselves for their actions? Why DOESN'T ACORN act ashamed when they are caught in blatant illegality/immorality? Imagine the storm of moral indignation if it were found that Sarah Palin had had sex with an intern? Or that George Bush had been running a homosexual escort service out of his home? What if it were found that Rush Limbaugh had knowingly faked and lied on his show in order to undermine a candidate he wanted to see fail? This fellow (on the video) says "of course we don't expect morality from them, they are Democrats." Have we as a COUNTRY really sunk so low? Is there no category from which to evaluate both parties on their honesty? This is how the empire can fall -- from the inside. Our own desire for open honesty and sympathy for the underdog is being used to neutralize our best and brightest.
Have a look at this and tell me what you think.
http://www.pjtv.com/v/2235
How can this be? Are we so deaf to the call of the truth that we have resigned ourselves to a culture that runs on power instead of logic? Could it be that we are so overwhelmed that we think the only approach is cynicism toward all things reasonable?
This is just the place that the devil wants us to occupy -- no ability to think clearly or willingness to throw the weight of our lives and energies behind a the good where we find it. What if we were such moral cowards that we would rather be in with the hip crowd than take a stand for the true and the good when we find them?
I have been reading Saul Alinsky's book "Rules for Radicals," and he is an amoral, pragmatic, shell of a human being who will do or say anything (and teach others to do the same) in order to achieve power for the people he represents. This is ALWAYS the problem: the people you would LIKE to have lead you are people of character, but the only people who can rise to power are those who are willing to compromise character to achieve power. What hope do those who are NOT willing to do anything have? When it comes to "the Chicago way," Sean Connery's character in The Untouchables says, "if they pull a knife, you pull a gun; if they put one of yours in the hospital, you put one of theirs in the morgue...how far are you willing to go?" That's the question, and in the movie it seems like a call to courage in the face of opposition -- but can we fight the devil on his own terms and not lose our souls?
The plan put forth by the Cloward-Piven bunch is being put into practice all around us. (If you don't know about the Cloward-Piven strategy, read about it here: http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=6967) The idea is to bring the present government down by overloading the system wherever it is weakest. The applications of this approach are everywhere:
Health care: because 20-40 million Americans don't have health insurance (and somehow folks are convinced everyone has a right to insurance), let's revamp the system for all 300 million of us and pay for it all through the government. This destroys the medical care for everyone, and incidentally crashes the economy. We were vulnerable because the country generally accepts the idea that the government should provide health care.
Housing: because a small percentage of the population don't own their own houses (because their finances are such that they are bad loan risks), direct the nation's banks to lower their standards and raise the loan risk level and loan requirements so that we can get everyone his own house. This overextends banks (on the promise that the Fed government will back defaults), loans fail, foreclosures ramp up, banks are bought out by the very government that said they'd back them, house prices fall, owners find they have negative equity, savings are lost, and the economy crashes. We were vulnerable because the country bought the idea that everyone should be given what they haven't earned (for whatever reason).
Voter registration: because it seems there are a lot of people who have not (for whatever reason) registered to vote, community organizers launch grass-roots projects to get everyone registered. Sounds good, but the real reason is not to get general registrations (as they tell the Republicans knowing it will stop their opposition), or to target groups that will vote Democrat (as they tell the Democrats, knowing it will stop their opposition), but that it will bring the election system to a collapse. The organizers know the voter registration offices are woefully understaffed, thus vulnerable to an overwhelming flood of paperwork that will lead to choke-points all through the system, bringing it all to a standstill. The registrations sent in by ACORN "volunteers" by the thousands were often frauds, but it takes time to track them each down to confirm. Not only does this slow the entire process of voting, it gives the enemies of the system credibility when they claim voter fraud -- "just look at all those illegitimate ballots!" they cry, knowing that they sent them in themselves. We are vulnerable precisely because of our conscientiousness.
In fact, we are vulnerable to these sorts of attacks because we want to be "good people" at every turn. Our very consciences are being used against us. What are people like Sarah Palin to do when they are attacked for being horrible, nasty, self-centered people who don't care about those without health care, housing, or the vote? Honest people want to address the accusations and redress any wrong they think they have caused -- and this is their mistake: they think the accusations must be somewhat true or they wouldn't be so raised. But dishonest people USE this honesty against them.
Why DON'T we expect Bill Clinton, Charles Rangel, Dan Rather, or Barney Frank to be ashamed of themselves for their actions? Why DOESN'T ACORN act ashamed when they are caught in blatant illegality/immorality? Imagine the storm of moral indignation if it were found that Sarah Palin had had sex with an intern? Or that George Bush had been running a homosexual escort service out of his home? What if it were found that Rush Limbaugh had knowingly faked and lied on his show in order to undermine a candidate he wanted to see fail? This fellow (on the video) says "of course we don't expect morality from them, they are Democrats." Have we as a COUNTRY really sunk so low? Is there no category from which to evaluate both parties on their honesty? This is how the empire can fall -- from the inside. Our own desire for open honesty and sympathy for the underdog is being used to neutralize our best and brightest.
Have a look at this and tell me what you think.
http://www.pjtv.com/v/2235
Tuesday, February 20, 2007
I have a friend who does a lot of teaching in Africa. He says that the number of conversions to Christianity in the southern 2/3rds of the continent has skyrocketed in the last century. But there is little change in the poverty level, AIDS epidemic, general promiscuity, ethics and corruption levels, housing and latrine arrangements, et c. The reason is that while folks become Christians and look forward to heaven with Jesus, they have not been taught the whole story of the Faith. That is, they have not understood what a Christian worldview is all about. They don't see that God created things, created all men and women in His image (with the proper dignity that deserves), what it implies now that God called unfallen Adam to name animals and till the garden (order, organize, learn to plant and harvest, exercise dominion). They don't see about the space/time Fall that has affected all things, not just their individual souls, and that redemption means that God has not only given us heaven but calls us to justice and righteousness here and now. That we must stand against the effects of the fall in all of life, that we must use the life we have for His glory in the here and now. That the Lord loves His creation and once called it good, and that in the next life we will have heavenly bodies, we'll not just be disembodied spirits, that we are made for physical communion, et c.
In place of a fully-orbed Christian worldview, the African Christians continue to hold to animism -- the same animism they held when they were "converted." So, in this world they believe one thing, and for the next world they believe something else. It is as though the gospel really were John 3:16 without the rest of the bible for context (and even then you have to insert your own name instead of "world" to keep it as narrow as people are taking it).
I think we are doing the same thing in our culture here -- we think the work of the Christian is to preach the gospel and convert souls, and beyond that the only connection the Faith has with day-to-day life is that it calls us to help the new converts go out and create more converts. It is the "life-boat" mentality that sees this world as a sea to be resucued out of -- we have to reach into the sea of this world (with all its commerce, music, film, art, relationships, meals, sports, pets, education, politics, history, sex, and books) and save people into the lifeboat of the church. Then the Church becomes a safe place to stay until we go home to be with the Lord. In that Church, we can live without questioning our assumptions about life -- we can continue to be materialists just like the Africans continue to be animists. This is why the Church has so little influence on the way we do our politics, commercial endeavors, academics, or spend our leisure. We in the West are simply living on the borrowed capital from past generations who DID know what this all meant, whereas the Africans have spent all their capital (or have never had it).
This is why I think the answer to the decline of the West (and the poverty of India and Africa) is a restatement of the whole Gospel, with all its implications for justice, commerce, art, education, leisure, marriage/sex, family, politics, et c). We should be reading Schaeffer and Kuyper, as well as Pope John Paul II's work on the connections between reason and faith. It is not at all impossible that we will soon have a generation that sees no connection between what they do on Friday night and what they say they believe on Sunday morning. When Paul writes "don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" he is writing to the Roman CHRISTIANS -- he is not calling unbelievers and pagans to faith in Christ, he is calling the faithful to do more than just hope for heaven. (this is by no means to say that we have to have our worldview in place before He'll save our souls -- rather this is the work He saves our souls FOR. We don't need an education to become Christians -- thank God! -- but after we are His, He begins to teach us what it is all about!)
Integrity means that we DO what we say we BELIEVE. (may our gracious Lord grant us His power to bring these two together in our lives).
In place of a fully-orbed Christian worldview, the African Christians continue to hold to animism -- the same animism they held when they were "converted." So, in this world they believe one thing, and for the next world they believe something else. It is as though the gospel really were John 3:16 without the rest of the bible for context (and even then you have to insert your own name instead of "world" to keep it as narrow as people are taking it).
I think we are doing the same thing in our culture here -- we think the work of the Christian is to preach the gospel and convert souls, and beyond that the only connection the Faith has with day-to-day life is that it calls us to help the new converts go out and create more converts. It is the "life-boat" mentality that sees this world as a sea to be resucued out of -- we have to reach into the sea of this world (with all its commerce, music, film, art, relationships, meals, sports, pets, education, politics, history, sex, and books) and save people into the lifeboat of the church. Then the Church becomes a safe place to stay until we go home to be with the Lord. In that Church, we can live without questioning our assumptions about life -- we can continue to be materialists just like the Africans continue to be animists. This is why the Church has so little influence on the way we do our politics, commercial endeavors, academics, or spend our leisure. We in the West are simply living on the borrowed capital from past generations who DID know what this all meant, whereas the Africans have spent all their capital (or have never had it).
This is why I think the answer to the decline of the West (and the poverty of India and Africa) is a restatement of the whole Gospel, with all its implications for justice, commerce, art, education, leisure, marriage/sex, family, politics, et c). We should be reading Schaeffer and Kuyper, as well as Pope John Paul II's work on the connections between reason and faith. It is not at all impossible that we will soon have a generation that sees no connection between what they do on Friday night and what they say they believe on Sunday morning. When Paul writes "don't be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewing of your mind" he is writing to the Roman CHRISTIANS -- he is not calling unbelievers and pagans to faith in Christ, he is calling the faithful to do more than just hope for heaven. (this is by no means to say that we have to have our worldview in place before He'll save our souls -- rather this is the work He saves our souls FOR. We don't need an education to become Christians -- thank God! -- but after we are His, He begins to teach us what it is all about!)
Integrity means that we DO what we say we BELIEVE. (may our gracious Lord grant us His power to bring these two together in our lives).
Monday, December 26, 2005
Suppose that a great commotion arises in the street about something, let us say a lamp-post, which many influential persons desire to pull down. A grey-clad monk, who is the spirit of the Middle Ages, is approached upon the matter, and begins to say, in the arid manner of the Schoolmen, "Let us first of all consider, my brethren, the value of Light. If Light be in itself good--" At this point he is somewhat excusably knocked down. All the people make a rush for the lamp-post, the lamp-post is down in ten minutes, and they go about congratulating each other on their unmediaeval practicality. But as things go on they do not work out so easily. Some people have pulled the lamp-post down because they wanted the electric light; some because they wanted old iron; some because they wanted darkness, because their deeds were evil. Some thought it not enough of a lamp-post, some too much; some acted because they wanted to smash municipal machinery; some because they wanted to smash something. And there is war in the night, no man knowing whom he strikes. So, gradually and inevitably, to-day, to-morrow, or the next day, there comes back the conviction that the monk was right after all, and that all depends on what is the philosophy of Light. Only what we might have discussed under the gas-lamp, we now must discuss in the dark.
GK Chesterton, from "Heretics"
GK Chesterton, from "Heretics"
Saturday, October 29, 2005
On Integrating Faith and Learning
An essay on the purpose of a Christian liberal arts education
by Sorcamford
The goal of education is not to simply teach knowledge, but to help God shape the soul to love those things which are lovely.
Summary:
Two most important influences on western culture: Athens (reason) and Jerusalem (religious revelation).
Origin and purpose of first universities: to know God and the world rightly through theology (the “queen of the sciences”) and proper use of reason. The joining of Athens and Jerusalem.
Influence of secularism in universities has been to lose the theological underpinnings of real knowledge, effectively separating faith and learning.
The purpose of the Christian liberal arts education: to re-integrate faith and learning, or Jerusalem and Athens.
A short history of the relation of faith and learning:
Starting with the cradle of civilization in Mesopotamia, and working through history to the point we find ourselves in today, there have been two major influences on us in the West. One came from ancient Greece, through Rome; the other came from ancient Jerusalem, through Rome.
The Greek influence, symbolized by the city of Athens, represents the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the mathematicians and early astronomers, the historians, playwrights, and of course the granddaddy of them all, Homer. From these come the various liberal arts of grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. The Greek civilization was succeeded by the Roman Republic, then the Roman Empire, and the Romans copied and extended this Greek culture throughout the world.
Into this Roman Empire comes Christianity, extending, completing and transforming the ancient Jewish culture. The Jewish/Christian influence, symbolized by the city of Jerusalem, represents the idea of revelation: that the Creator of all things has actually spoken to us directly, revealing Himself and His plans for His creation to mankind. The assumption within this revelation is that mankind alone (to whom it is directed – no revelation seems sent to planets or bears…) has the mental ability to rightly comprehend this revelation. That is, human beings have the ability to reason about the revelation given. This ability to reason is the cross-point between Athens and Jerusalem, and almost immediately the early Christian church asked the question, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” That is, what relation does Greek/Roman thinking have to do with Judeo/Christian believing? Or, what does learning have to do with faith? The Church Fathers (Tertullian -- who first asked the question -- Athanasius, many others, and finally the greatest of them, Augustine) addressed this question as they hammered out what was Christian theology and addressed heresies in the early church. We are deeply indebted to them for the church and the Bible as we know them, but also for how to think about God – that is, for the subject of theology. Theology was considered a science – the work of applying our reason to God’s revelation. There was in the end no contradiction between God’s words and our using reason to comprehend and apply those words.
In the Middle Ages, after a 1000 years of church history, the writings of Aristotle were reintroduced into western Europe. The result was a revitalized interest in the question of the relation of Athens to Jerusalem, or learning and faith. Rising to the occasion, theologians attempted to address how Christians did not need to choose one or the other – revelation and reason can work together without losing either the supremacy of scripture or the significant accomplishments of pagan reason. They simply needed someone to synthesize the two seemingly disparate views of knowledge. The result of their work was the birth of the Cathedral School, which ultimately served as the model for the first universities. In the university one studied the ancient liberal arts in order to know first how to think clearly (by proper use of language: Latin grammar, logic, rhetoric); and to understand the world around us (through the proper understanding of number: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music). These basic tools prepared a student to undertake more extensive studies in law or theology, but were essential to becoming an educated person.
Universities were established in Bologna, Paris, and Oxford to begin with, then extended over the next 500 years into all parts of the world, including the new colonies of America, all with the idea that Christianity gives the right view of the world, and that through it human beings can be trained to think rightly about the world around them. Added to the curriculum along the way were the great accomplishments of the scholars, scientists, and artists who benefited from its tutelage, and these became the arts and sciences.
With the rise of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, a wave of secularism swept through the universities, and the theological underpinnings for reason were lost, even while the attempt was made to retain reason itself. Scholars didn’t see why theology and religion should limit the work of the scholar, and so slowly Jerusalem was eclipsed by Athens, and a secularized humanism replaced what had been a proper Christian humanism (the humanities are the study of the human experience in history, art, literature, music, and to a degree in the softer sciences of anthropology, sociology, and psychology – and as long as they are properly understood in light of Christian revelation they prosper).
With the secularization of the universities, Western civilization became more secularized, with the result today that most of the general cultural indicators show a loss of morality, virtue, and self-denial, but ironically also a loss of a belief in truth – even the hard sciences are now doubting whether or not things can be properly known. The Christian argues that the Medieval schoolmen had it right when they said that reason rests on revelation, and once revelation has been dismissed as superstitious, reason would not last long. Reason without revelation (Athens without Jerusalem) has had a run of about 250 years, and in the last 40 years has faltered. This is often called the death of Modernism (some people say that political Modernism was established in the French Revolution of 1789 and was deposed with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 – exactly 200 years), and what we are left with today is a post-modern world that has now lost both revelation AND reason.
What can a Christian College do?
The Christian liberal arts college is in a unique position at this point in history. We can reestablish a right understanding of revelation and reason and thereby reestablish both the place of the university and the place of a Christian worldview in the life of our civilization. The university has been reduced to offering elective courses combined into diverse degrees designed to attract students interested in preparing for particular jobs. If a student wants to become an engineer or a dancer, the university designs a series of courses that will prepare him or her for that career. As a result, there is little agreement among universities about what defines an “educated person”. The Christian liberal arts college claims to know what an educated person OUGHT to know – and this is somewhat scandalous in an academic climate that both doubts that anything can even BE known, and scoffs at the idea that there are some things that are more worth knowing than others. But the Christian liberal arts college has the history of the university on its side, and can reestablish ties with that tradition by asserting both theological truths (that Jesus did rise from the dead, that God has revealed Himself as a Trinity, that Jesus was both fully God and fully man, that human beings are made in the image of their Creator, that the course of history is Creation, Fall, Redemption, Glorification, etc.), AND that reason can further our understanding of reality (that there are natural laws that can be discovered by scientific inquiry, that applying the theological doctrines to the rest of life generates real knowledge of those areas – more on that in a moment).
At Crichton College, we have the opportunity to re-connect Athens and Jerusalem. If we take this job on, each of our scholars (faculty) will have to ask him/her self what does theology have to do with my subject matter? The reason for this is that each of our faculty has been trained by the university of the last 250 years – the secularized university that has continued to apply reasoning to the subjects generally without the benefit of revelation. So, our work is to properly re-integrate revelation and reason, or faith and learning. What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?
What will integrating faith and learning look like?
The Christian liberal arts college will be led by its faculty, which is doing the career-long work of thinking through the implications of theology for their fields. The psychologist will ask, “Assuming the Fall, what affect does it have on man’s psyche?” The scientist will ask, “Assuming that the universe is designed by a Creator, how is that design reflected?” or “How can the study of biology help establish or undermine the present theories of the origins of life?” or “What does the doctrine of the Imago Dei – the image of God in man – say about the limits of scientific inquiries such as fetal tissue research or cloning?” The artist will ask, “What is the purpose of artistic endeavor in God’s design for human beings?” or “How will creativity reflect God’s glory?” or the Business professor will ask, “How should God’s ethical laws be reflected in the workplace?” or “What happens to the Imago Dei when people are thought of as ‘human resources’?” Each subject, school, discipline, or division will be asking the question, “How do the doctrines revealed in scripture fit with our study of the general revelation of God in the Creation?” and “How can I apply the salt and light of the scriptures to my particular field to purge my field of the secularizing influences of the past 250 years, and set my field on a course that will further reveal the glory of God in it?” If our faculty would take up this challenge, and our marketing department would tell our community of our efforts, we would attract students who are enthused about this vision of education. Once students begin to come (as many have already) and their stories are included in our marketing work (just ask me about names!), we will begin to see our college become the tool our Lord wants it to be: a tool to reintegrate faith and learning in the next generations, and transform our culture with the Gospel by sending forth students to take up positions of significance in the various fields of endeavor in our community – not just to make a living, but to transform those fields with clear-headed application of a Christian worldview. Just think of what our culture would look like if not only our missionaries and pastors thought this way, but our artists, and our lawyers, and our shopkeepers, and our CEOs, and our social workers, and our bankers, and our mechanics, and our marketing directors all knew how to think in Christian terms about the culture they engage everyday. This would mean that we need to teach some very specific things (a core curriculum for Crichton College): Theology, the definition of a Christian worldview, philosophy, logic, rhetoric, languages (biblical and modern), the arts and sciences, and finally the majors. We would teach our students not only how to witness to their co-workers, but that they have Christian reasons for making films, and leading corporations, and repairing cars. They know why work itself glorifies God, and they trust that their needs will be met by God Himself, rather than by their own ambitions for more money. This seemingly utopian picture is only possible by the combination of God’s work of regeneration and redemption in the souls of our students, combined with God’s work of honing their minds to think His thoughts after Him in all the disciplines. The combination of these two things, faith and learning, is the work of the Christian liberal arts college.
An essay on the purpose of a Christian liberal arts education
by Sorcamford
The goal of education is not to simply teach knowledge, but to help God shape the soul to love those things which are lovely.
Summary:
Two most important influences on western culture: Athens (reason) and Jerusalem (religious revelation).
Origin and purpose of first universities: to know God and the world rightly through theology (the “queen of the sciences”) and proper use of reason. The joining of Athens and Jerusalem.
Influence of secularism in universities has been to lose the theological underpinnings of real knowledge, effectively separating faith and learning.
The purpose of the Christian liberal arts education: to re-integrate faith and learning, or Jerusalem and Athens.
A short history of the relation of faith and learning:
Starting with the cradle of civilization in Mesopotamia, and working through history to the point we find ourselves in today, there have been two major influences on us in the West. One came from ancient Greece, through Rome; the other came from ancient Jerusalem, through Rome.
The Greek influence, symbolized by the city of Athens, represents the philosophies of Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, the mathematicians and early astronomers, the historians, playwrights, and of course the granddaddy of them all, Homer. From these come the various liberal arts of grammar, logic, rhetoric, arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music. The Greek civilization was succeeded by the Roman Republic, then the Roman Empire, and the Romans copied and extended this Greek culture throughout the world.
Into this Roman Empire comes Christianity, extending, completing and transforming the ancient Jewish culture. The Jewish/Christian influence, symbolized by the city of Jerusalem, represents the idea of revelation: that the Creator of all things has actually spoken to us directly, revealing Himself and His plans for His creation to mankind. The assumption within this revelation is that mankind alone (to whom it is directed – no revelation seems sent to planets or bears…) has the mental ability to rightly comprehend this revelation. That is, human beings have the ability to reason about the revelation given. This ability to reason is the cross-point between Athens and Jerusalem, and almost immediately the early Christian church asked the question, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” That is, what relation does Greek/Roman thinking have to do with Judeo/Christian believing? Or, what does learning have to do with faith? The Church Fathers (Tertullian -- who first asked the question -- Athanasius, many others, and finally the greatest of them, Augustine) addressed this question as they hammered out what was Christian theology and addressed heresies in the early church. We are deeply indebted to them for the church and the Bible as we know them, but also for how to think about God – that is, for the subject of theology. Theology was considered a science – the work of applying our reason to God’s revelation. There was in the end no contradiction between God’s words and our using reason to comprehend and apply those words.
In the Middle Ages, after a 1000 years of church history, the writings of Aristotle were reintroduced into western Europe. The result was a revitalized interest in the question of the relation of Athens to Jerusalem, or learning and faith. Rising to the occasion, theologians attempted to address how Christians did not need to choose one or the other – revelation and reason can work together without losing either the supremacy of scripture or the significant accomplishments of pagan reason. They simply needed someone to synthesize the two seemingly disparate views of knowledge. The result of their work was the birth of the Cathedral School, which ultimately served as the model for the first universities. In the university one studied the ancient liberal arts in order to know first how to think clearly (by proper use of language: Latin grammar, logic, rhetoric); and to understand the world around us (through the proper understanding of number: arithmetic, geometry, astronomy, and music). These basic tools prepared a student to undertake more extensive studies in law or theology, but were essential to becoming an educated person.
Universities were established in Bologna, Paris, and Oxford to begin with, then extended over the next 500 years into all parts of the world, including the new colonies of America, all with the idea that Christianity gives the right view of the world, and that through it human beings can be trained to think rightly about the world around them. Added to the curriculum along the way were the great accomplishments of the scholars, scientists, and artists who benefited from its tutelage, and these became the arts and sciences.
With the rise of the Enlightenment in the 18th century, a wave of secularism swept through the universities, and the theological underpinnings for reason were lost, even while the attempt was made to retain reason itself. Scholars didn’t see why theology and religion should limit the work of the scholar, and so slowly Jerusalem was eclipsed by Athens, and a secularized humanism replaced what had been a proper Christian humanism (the humanities are the study of the human experience in history, art, literature, music, and to a degree in the softer sciences of anthropology, sociology, and psychology – and as long as they are properly understood in light of Christian revelation they prosper).
With the secularization of the universities, Western civilization became more secularized, with the result today that most of the general cultural indicators show a loss of morality, virtue, and self-denial, but ironically also a loss of a belief in truth – even the hard sciences are now doubting whether or not things can be properly known. The Christian argues that the Medieval schoolmen had it right when they said that reason rests on revelation, and once revelation has been dismissed as superstitious, reason would not last long. Reason without revelation (Athens without Jerusalem) has had a run of about 250 years, and in the last 40 years has faltered. This is often called the death of Modernism (some people say that political Modernism was established in the French Revolution of 1789 and was deposed with the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 – exactly 200 years), and what we are left with today is a post-modern world that has now lost both revelation AND reason.
What can a Christian College do?
The Christian liberal arts college is in a unique position at this point in history. We can reestablish a right understanding of revelation and reason and thereby reestablish both the place of the university and the place of a Christian worldview in the life of our civilization. The university has been reduced to offering elective courses combined into diverse degrees designed to attract students interested in preparing for particular jobs. If a student wants to become an engineer or a dancer, the university designs a series of courses that will prepare him or her for that career. As a result, there is little agreement among universities about what defines an “educated person”. The Christian liberal arts college claims to know what an educated person OUGHT to know – and this is somewhat scandalous in an academic climate that both doubts that anything can even BE known, and scoffs at the idea that there are some things that are more worth knowing than others. But the Christian liberal arts college has the history of the university on its side, and can reestablish ties with that tradition by asserting both theological truths (that Jesus did rise from the dead, that God has revealed Himself as a Trinity, that Jesus was both fully God and fully man, that human beings are made in the image of their Creator, that the course of history is Creation, Fall, Redemption, Glorification, etc.), AND that reason can further our understanding of reality (that there are natural laws that can be discovered by scientific inquiry, that applying the theological doctrines to the rest of life generates real knowledge of those areas – more on that in a moment).
At Crichton College, we have the opportunity to re-connect Athens and Jerusalem. If we take this job on, each of our scholars (faculty) will have to ask him/her self what does theology have to do with my subject matter? The reason for this is that each of our faculty has been trained by the university of the last 250 years – the secularized university that has continued to apply reasoning to the subjects generally without the benefit of revelation. So, our work is to properly re-integrate revelation and reason, or faith and learning. What does Jerusalem have to do with Athens?
What will integrating faith and learning look like?
The Christian liberal arts college will be led by its faculty, which is doing the career-long work of thinking through the implications of theology for their fields. The psychologist will ask, “Assuming the Fall, what affect does it have on man’s psyche?” The scientist will ask, “Assuming that the universe is designed by a Creator, how is that design reflected?” or “How can the study of biology help establish or undermine the present theories of the origins of life?” or “What does the doctrine of the Imago Dei – the image of God in man – say about the limits of scientific inquiries such as fetal tissue research or cloning?” The artist will ask, “What is the purpose of artistic endeavor in God’s design for human beings?” or “How will creativity reflect God’s glory?” or the Business professor will ask, “How should God’s ethical laws be reflected in the workplace?” or “What happens to the Imago Dei when people are thought of as ‘human resources’?” Each subject, school, discipline, or division will be asking the question, “How do the doctrines revealed in scripture fit with our study of the general revelation of God in the Creation?” and “How can I apply the salt and light of the scriptures to my particular field to purge my field of the secularizing influences of the past 250 years, and set my field on a course that will further reveal the glory of God in it?” If our faculty would take up this challenge, and our marketing department would tell our community of our efforts, we would attract students who are enthused about this vision of education. Once students begin to come (as many have already) and their stories are included in our marketing work (just ask me about names!), we will begin to see our college become the tool our Lord wants it to be: a tool to reintegrate faith and learning in the next generations, and transform our culture with the Gospel by sending forth students to take up positions of significance in the various fields of endeavor in our community – not just to make a living, but to transform those fields with clear-headed application of a Christian worldview. Just think of what our culture would look like if not only our missionaries and pastors thought this way, but our artists, and our lawyers, and our shopkeepers, and our CEOs, and our social workers, and our bankers, and our mechanics, and our marketing directors all knew how to think in Christian terms about the culture they engage everyday. This would mean that we need to teach some very specific things (a core curriculum for Crichton College): Theology, the definition of a Christian worldview, philosophy, logic, rhetoric, languages (biblical and modern), the arts and sciences, and finally the majors. We would teach our students not only how to witness to their co-workers, but that they have Christian reasons for making films, and leading corporations, and repairing cars. They know why work itself glorifies God, and they trust that their needs will be met by God Himself, rather than by their own ambitions for more money. This seemingly utopian picture is only possible by the combination of God’s work of regeneration and redemption in the souls of our students, combined with God’s work of honing their minds to think His thoughts after Him in all the disciplines. The combination of these two things, faith and learning, is the work of the Christian liberal arts college.
Wednesday, October 05, 2005
Once upon a time there was a horse. It was a marvelous horse, tall in stature, proud in character, rich brown in color. People came from miles around to see this horse, as it was the only one they had ever seen. It was the only one in existence.
Scholars decided to study the horse to see what could be learned about it, but there was so much to the mighty creature they decided to each address a portion of the horse to save time. So one studied the nose, another the flanks, another the hoofs, another the ears, and together they marveled at the details they uncovered and shared their discoveries with each other. The one who studied the nose spoke of its shape and nostrils, the one who studied the hooves spoke about the curve of the hoof, and the difference between the hoof tissue and that of the rest of the leg, the one who studied the ears spoke of their ability to turn in various directions and the cartilage he could feel through the flesh on the outside. Each was amazed at the living breathing creature, and how many facets it had.
So much so, that when they went back to their own homes, they began to try to describe this animal to their friends. These descriptions were so astounding that they began to hear of others who wanted to come and study with the scholars about this horse they had inspected. The one who had studied the nose could describe the nose in detail, but the details about the rest (since it had not been his specific area) were more vague in his mind. Likewise, the others found that when they were apart they could describe the area of study they had each undertaken, but it was difficult to describe the whole horse, and even harder to describe the awe they had found in its presence.
The scholars decided that they should band together to properly communicate the entirety of the horse to their individual students, all in hope that they would be able to recreate in their students the awe they had each felt. But to do so, they needed each other's expertise. The one who studied the hoof was in need of the one who studied the ears, and the one who studied the tail needed help from the one who studied the flanks, et c. The horse was too much for anyone to grasp completely, so they followed their studies in the various horse-disciplines, but always with an eye to make sense of not just the whole of the parts, but the life that that whole seemed to contain.
So the scholars began a school for students to learn about horses. There was no real point to this study apart from the amazing knowledge itself. It would not directly give anyone special advantage in the pursuit of wealth or power, but they found that when you got a glimpse of the living breathing horse itself, you were astounded and awestruck. This experience became a motivator for the scholars to continue to learn and grow in all areas of knowledge, and as a result, knowing about the horse as a whole seemed to give one a better understanding of life in general. Employers began to look for people who knew about the horse because those people always seemed to be in awe about life in general, and this made them more interested in learning other things, like how to market products or design Powerpoint presentations, and those seemed to guarantee sales. (oddly, as the years went by, the more marketing and presenting these horse-scholars-turned-businessmen did, the less enthusiasm they had for horse-studies, but ironically the less interest they had for business practices too, and most ended up watching a lot of cable television and muttering to themselves, but that is another story.)
As the generations went by, the students grew and began to teach about the horse themselves, and, as might be expected, they mostly discussed the aspect of the animal that their individual teachers had studied the most. So there came to be schools of thought about the horse. The “students of the nose,” as they were called, came to believe that their part of the animal was the most important, as did the “hoof scholars” and the “mane institute” – and they passed their best information on to the next generations of students as best they could, writing in the “New Albany Journal of Horses," all about their individual studies, and about how each thought his study really got to the most fascinating and essential parts of the horse.
After several more generations, the various schools decided to separate to pursue their respective studies. This came about because each scholar began to think that his individual area of study was not only the most important in knowing the horse, but was also somehow limited by close proximity with the scholarship of the department nearest him. One can’t study the hoof completely without constantly running into the “leg scholarship” guys, and one can’t study the mane of the horse without always having to keep the nose, mouth, and eye guys “out of your hair.” (which is, of course, how that phrase came to be).
So, the various schools broke the tenuous connections they had held through inter-school communications, the New Albany Journal, and the National Horse Conference, to pursue their study of the horse without the limitations of the others. They each founded their own journals, started conferences specifically for their individual area of study (The Hoof College held its first annual Hoof and Nail Conference that later became an international event). This made it possible to really dig deep into the details of the various aspects of the horse. The mane scholars found that there were many different lengths and widths of hair in the mane, and the hoof fellows found that there were all sorts of diseases that could be addressed by proper care for the hoof, and the flank guys studied the ribcage showing through the thin skin on the flanks, and speculated about what could be found underneath the ribs.
So the awe for the life of the original horse was slowly transferred to the awe for the details the scholars could show, and then eventually awe for the scholars themselves. Just look at the insight, the detail, the well-organized facts about the various aspects of the horse! The schools even began to compete with each other over how many details they could catalogue. Also, in their free time they established football teams made up of students from the various schools to give them momentary diversions from their studies. These teams built huge followings and in some ways overshadowed the original purpose of the horse studies, but that is another story.
Eventually the horse studies became known simply as “the studies” since everyone knew they were all about the horse, and the various schools became known by the specialty they each offered. The Nose School, the Tail Way, the Hoof Gymnasium, the Mane Institute… and each found that by studying a particular aspect, students became quite good at certain aspects of life. Those who studied the nose became skilled at predicting diseases in people, those who studied the tail found that they could build great violin bows, those who studied the hoof found their way as manicurists, and those who studied the mane seemed to become experts in cosmetology.
As centuries went on, an entire culture rose up around those who were doctors, musicians, cosmetologists, et c., and a certain demand sprang up for these abilities. Eventually scholars simply taught medicine, music, and hair-styling without bothering to make reference to the parts of the horse at all. The courses that connected the vocations to the horse itself were ignored or discontinued in hopes of making the students’ years of study as efficient as possible so that they could enter into their desired jobs as quickly as possible. Eventually, there were so many schools cropping up, the competition among the various schools became quite fierce. The schools who received fewer students found that they were not able to pay all their faculty, so since they did not want to shut down, they hired marketing firms to bolster their images and attract students. As soon as one school went this route, others had to follow, since their market share was becoming threatened. So they all turned to advertisers and marketers who would write ads and marketing sloagans for each school, and be paid by them all. They would get paid huge sums for, “We noses can get you a better job than those ear guys.” and other witty aphorisms.
There were still some schools that attempted to connect studies to the parts of the horse that originally inspired them, even though these schools were considered out-of-touch with the mainstream, and taught useless information. One day, at the Mane Institute of Technology (at this late date, few knew anymore what the word Mane actually referred to -- the Institute, or MIT, was now most highly regarded for doing the physics and chemestry work needed to produce acne products), a graduate student, deep in the recesses of the library was going over ancient references to hair follicles and discovered the definition of something called "the mane." He asked his study partner, “just what is this "mane" anyway?” The partner, a junior, had no real idea. "And it is in the name of our school, too." And the two of them began to wonder why they were studying follicles, hair thickness, and length, and began to ask what was both north and south of the mane. Their faculty at first resisted their questions, but then began to be curious as well. One called over a scholar from the Left Ear Institute at a football game their teams were playing, and asked, “What do the names of our schools have to do with education?” “Who cares? Go Earholes!” he shouted as they scored.
But the Mane Man was not daunted – he began to imagine what the field of study would look like if all of them gave up for a moment pursuing the studies of music, medicine, law, and glue manufacturing, and got together to pool their knowledge about the ancient and lost arts of nose, ear, flank (no one studied this one anymore), hoof, tail, etc. He formulated a conference and invited the top scholars from each of the present schools, and these debated the differences among their various fields. After some time they were able to piece together on paper a picture of their combined subjects, and make educated guesses about which parts were missing. The result was a very awkward and fractured picture of a horse. They were each amazed and a strange awe swept over them all. Could this be what the ancients were about? It was an amazing sight, and one that none of them had ever seen before. “It’s beautiful,” said one, and all agreed. “But what good is it?” asked another. There was silence around the room.
Scholars decided to study the horse to see what could be learned about it, but there was so much to the mighty creature they decided to each address a portion of the horse to save time. So one studied the nose, another the flanks, another the hoofs, another the ears, and together they marveled at the details they uncovered and shared their discoveries with each other. The one who studied the nose spoke of its shape and nostrils, the one who studied the hooves spoke about the curve of the hoof, and the difference between the hoof tissue and that of the rest of the leg, the one who studied the ears spoke of their ability to turn in various directions and the cartilage he could feel through the flesh on the outside. Each was amazed at the living breathing creature, and how many facets it had.
So much so, that when they went back to their own homes, they began to try to describe this animal to their friends. These descriptions were so astounding that they began to hear of others who wanted to come and study with the scholars about this horse they had inspected. The one who had studied the nose could describe the nose in detail, but the details about the rest (since it had not been his specific area) were more vague in his mind. Likewise, the others found that when they were apart they could describe the area of study they had each undertaken, but it was difficult to describe the whole horse, and even harder to describe the awe they had found in its presence.
The scholars decided that they should band together to properly communicate the entirety of the horse to their individual students, all in hope that they would be able to recreate in their students the awe they had each felt. But to do so, they needed each other's expertise. The one who studied the hoof was in need of the one who studied the ears, and the one who studied the tail needed help from the one who studied the flanks, et c. The horse was too much for anyone to grasp completely, so they followed their studies in the various horse-disciplines, but always with an eye to make sense of not just the whole of the parts, but the life that that whole seemed to contain.
So the scholars began a school for students to learn about horses. There was no real point to this study apart from the amazing knowledge itself. It would not directly give anyone special advantage in the pursuit of wealth or power, but they found that when you got a glimpse of the living breathing horse itself, you were astounded and awestruck. This experience became a motivator for the scholars to continue to learn and grow in all areas of knowledge, and as a result, knowing about the horse as a whole seemed to give one a better understanding of life in general. Employers began to look for people who knew about the horse because those people always seemed to be in awe about life in general, and this made them more interested in learning other things, like how to market products or design Powerpoint presentations, and those seemed to guarantee sales. (oddly, as the years went by, the more marketing and presenting these horse-scholars-turned-businessmen did, the less enthusiasm they had for horse-studies, but ironically the less interest they had for business practices too, and most ended up watching a lot of cable television and muttering to themselves, but that is another story.)
As the generations went by, the students grew and began to teach about the horse themselves, and, as might be expected, they mostly discussed the aspect of the animal that their individual teachers had studied the most. So there came to be schools of thought about the horse. The “students of the nose,” as they were called, came to believe that their part of the animal was the most important, as did the “hoof scholars” and the “mane institute” – and they passed their best information on to the next generations of students as best they could, writing in the “New Albany Journal of Horses," all about their individual studies, and about how each thought his study really got to the most fascinating and essential parts of the horse.
After several more generations, the various schools decided to separate to pursue their respective studies. This came about because each scholar began to think that his individual area of study was not only the most important in knowing the horse, but was also somehow limited by close proximity with the scholarship of the department nearest him. One can’t study the hoof completely without constantly running into the “leg scholarship” guys, and one can’t study the mane of the horse without always having to keep the nose, mouth, and eye guys “out of your hair.” (which is, of course, how that phrase came to be).
So, the various schools broke the tenuous connections they had held through inter-school communications, the New Albany Journal, and the National Horse Conference, to pursue their study of the horse without the limitations of the others. They each founded their own journals, started conferences specifically for their individual area of study (The Hoof College held its first annual Hoof and Nail Conference that later became an international event). This made it possible to really dig deep into the details of the various aspects of the horse. The mane scholars found that there were many different lengths and widths of hair in the mane, and the hoof fellows found that there were all sorts of diseases that could be addressed by proper care for the hoof, and the flank guys studied the ribcage showing through the thin skin on the flanks, and speculated about what could be found underneath the ribs.
So the awe for the life of the original horse was slowly transferred to the awe for the details the scholars could show, and then eventually awe for the scholars themselves. Just look at the insight, the detail, the well-organized facts about the various aspects of the horse! The schools even began to compete with each other over how many details they could catalogue. Also, in their free time they established football teams made up of students from the various schools to give them momentary diversions from their studies. These teams built huge followings and in some ways overshadowed the original purpose of the horse studies, but that is another story.
Eventually the horse studies became known simply as “the studies” since everyone knew they were all about the horse, and the various schools became known by the specialty they each offered. The Nose School, the Tail Way, the Hoof Gymnasium, the Mane Institute… and each found that by studying a particular aspect, students became quite good at certain aspects of life. Those who studied the nose became skilled at predicting diseases in people, those who studied the tail found that they could build great violin bows, those who studied the hoof found their way as manicurists, and those who studied the mane seemed to become experts in cosmetology.
As centuries went on, an entire culture rose up around those who were doctors, musicians, cosmetologists, et c., and a certain demand sprang up for these abilities. Eventually scholars simply taught medicine, music, and hair-styling without bothering to make reference to the parts of the horse at all. The courses that connected the vocations to the horse itself were ignored or discontinued in hopes of making the students’ years of study as efficient as possible so that they could enter into their desired jobs as quickly as possible. Eventually, there were so many schools cropping up, the competition among the various schools became quite fierce. The schools who received fewer students found that they were not able to pay all their faculty, so since they did not want to shut down, they hired marketing firms to bolster their images and attract students. As soon as one school went this route, others had to follow, since their market share was becoming threatened. So they all turned to advertisers and marketers who would write ads and marketing sloagans for each school, and be paid by them all. They would get paid huge sums for, “We noses can get you a better job than those ear guys.” and other witty aphorisms.
There were still some schools that attempted to connect studies to the parts of the horse that originally inspired them, even though these schools were considered out-of-touch with the mainstream, and taught useless information. One day, at the Mane Institute of Technology (at this late date, few knew anymore what the word Mane actually referred to -- the Institute, or MIT, was now most highly regarded for doing the physics and chemestry work needed to produce acne products), a graduate student, deep in the recesses of the library was going over ancient references to hair follicles and discovered the definition of something called "the mane." He asked his study partner, “just what is this "mane" anyway?” The partner, a junior, had no real idea. "And it is in the name of our school, too." And the two of them began to wonder why they were studying follicles, hair thickness, and length, and began to ask what was both north and south of the mane. Their faculty at first resisted their questions, but then began to be curious as well. One called over a scholar from the Left Ear Institute at a football game their teams were playing, and asked, “What do the names of our schools have to do with education?” “Who cares? Go Earholes!” he shouted as they scored.
But the Mane Man was not daunted – he began to imagine what the field of study would look like if all of them gave up for a moment pursuing the studies of music, medicine, law, and glue manufacturing, and got together to pool their knowledge about the ancient and lost arts of nose, ear, flank (no one studied this one anymore), hoof, tail, etc. He formulated a conference and invited the top scholars from each of the present schools, and these debated the differences among their various fields. After some time they were able to piece together on paper a picture of their combined subjects, and make educated guesses about which parts were missing. The result was a very awkward and fractured picture of a horse. They were each amazed and a strange awe swept over them all. Could this be what the ancients were about? It was an amazing sight, and one that none of them had ever seen before. “It’s beautiful,” said one, and all agreed. “But what good is it?” asked another. There was silence around the room.
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