The Pretty Important Journal

Probably

2012-01-23T15:16:00.001-08:00

She Tebow-ed her Way Into My Heart

2012-01-21T12:38:00.000-08:00

This is the most popular religion on the planet with a rich history of art, images, symbols, ceremonies. How do you communicate that you are a Christian in an image? Add this to the mix.

Letters From Rick Deckard

2011-11-04T15:11:00.000-07:00

I recently received an invitation to enroll in a Business School class. The following introduction is taken directly from the e-mail which I hope was sent to a mass list of students and my name was just form-fed into the bullshit-o-tron 9000.

From: REDACTED@bus.wisc.edu
Subject: SUSTAINABILITY and QUALITY Courses for SPRING 2012

Hello David,

Professor REDACTED would like to invite you to the course he is teaching this Spring on sustainable approaches to strategic breakthrough. This course takes a leadership perspective for sustained organizational success, and focuses on the deployment of breakthrough strategy that supports both the organization’s mission and its journey to sustainability. The strategic intent is to satisfy multiple objectives of a diverse set of organizational stakeholders while preparing the organization for a sustainable future. Students will have the opportunity to select a study topic or organizational issue of their own choosing and apply the relevant course material to that topic. Topics may involve organizational projects, applications to industry sectors, governments or NGOs, strategic organizational challenges, theses, dissertations, product and service strategy, or any issue involving strategic breakthrough that is important to the student.

I'd normally say that this is a laughable attempt to pass the Turing Test, but then it dawned on me that only a human mind could possibly create this much bullshit in the course of three sentences. And following in the footsteps of Aristotle, I'd like to quantify, classify, and organize this bullshit.

Bullshit Level 0
SUSTAINABILITY and QUALITY Courses for SPRING 2012

When you CAPITALIZE the words you want people to READ, it gets under THEIR SKIN because they feel MANIPULATED and it's like YOU ARE SHOUTING.

Bullshit Level 1
This professor would not like to invite me to the course. This professor, by virtue of this very e-mail, has extended me such an invitation. The passive voice is to be avoided, remember? But to form-fill in my name and then start the soft-sell like this is supposed to make me feel less threatened. He is a professor and he would like to do something for me!

Bullshit Level 2
"sustainable approaches to strategic breakthrough"

There's no words there! What does that mean? That doesn't mean anything!

Let's have a little talk about sustainability. Sustainability is a very important and laudable goal for any business or society to have. It means that you can 'sustain' the way you do things for a long time (hopefully indefinitely). So a lot of agriculture right now is unsustainable because it uses more groundwater than is being recharged into the aquifer. Agriculture uses a lot of fossil fuels which is not a sustainable practice- we are using up more coal, oil, and natural gas than our planet is generating. So a push for 'sustainable' agriculture would mean growing crops that use less water, take up less space, increase the amount of yield you get per amount of energy you expend, etc.

So you can think of all sorts of ways to make different businesses sustainable. You could develop better technology that does a manufacturing process in a way that uses less energy. You can change the packaging on a product so it is more biodegradable.

And now, a bit about strategy. Strategy (in contrast to 'tactics') is knowing what to do to win a game. Tactics are the specific actions you take to execute your strategy. If the game is Settlers of Catan, it may be a winning strategy to buy development cards and build up the Largest Army and have a few victory points. A good tactic you could use to accomplish that strategy is to place your first settlements near the required resources. A bad tactic you could use to accomplish that strategy is to convert four of one resource into the resource that you need.

Strategies exist in the business world too, of course. Some companies have expensive advertising campaigns to improve your image of their brand. Pepsi and Coke don't really try to convince you that their product tastes better, they try to convince you that their product is cooler, trendier, that all of your friends drink it, that you become irresistibly attractive when you drink it. Other companies just blatantly say they are superior (this truck has won awards; watch it go up this corkscrew tower of flaming death in the desert). That's more a change of tactics than a change of strategy.

Some companies sell a product at a discounted rate so they can sell you a different one later and jack the price up. Keurig coffee makers work like this: you buy the machine for less than it costs the company to make it, then you pay through the nose for the special Keurig-style coffee canisters to use it. Same thing with Gillette razors: you pay $2 for your handle for your Mach III and $15 for a refill cartridge.

So 'sustainable approaches to strategic breakthrough' should mean that there are reliable, indefinitely repeatable ways to develop business plans that are better than all of the plans we've ever had before. But it doesn't.

Bullshit Level 3
"This course takes a leadership perspective for sustained organizational success"

A perspective is a way of viewing a certain subject.

From one angle, this is a picture of a lion. But by changing your perspective and flipping the picture upside down, you see a mouse instead. So what does it mean to take a leadership perspective? Nothing, really. They just wanted to work the word 'leadership' in there somehow. But this is a business school, the point of which is to make good middle management people. This class will be looking at a few topics from the perspective of future middle managers, future leaders. It will not look at the scientific repercussions of these sustainable practices or the political policies needed to enact them. It will not look at the engineering principles needed to analyze a sustainable system. It will adopt a leadership perspective.

"Sustained organizational success" is also just word padding. They wanted to say 'sustainability' again but must have feared that saying it outright would tip off the spam filter. Isn't all success in business supposed to be sustained? Do we consider CEO's successful if their organization doesn't make money?

Bullshit Level 4
"[This course] focuses on the deployment of breakthrough strategy that supports both the organization’s mission and its journey to sustainability."

"[This course] focuses on the strategy of deploying breakthroughs that support both the organization’s mission and its journey to sustainability."

"[This course] focuses on the strategy of supporting breakthroughs that deploy both the organization’s mission and its journey to sustainability."

"[This course] focuses on supporting and deploying breakthroughs that sustain both the organization’s strategy and its mission."

"[This course] focuses on supporting and deploying strategic breakthroughs that sustain the organization’s mission."

"[This course] focuses on the journey of deploying strategic breakthroughs that support both the organization’s mission and its sustainability."

"[This course] focuses on missing breakthroughs that support both the organization’s strategy and its journey to sustainability."

One of the above sentences was actually from the e-mail. Can you guess which? I've written the answer upside-down on the next page so you can't cheat.

Bullshit Level 5

"The strategic intent is to satisfy multiple objectives of a diverse set of organizational stakeholders while preparing the organization for a sustainable future."

Remember from the previous 'sentence' that the course focuses on deploying strategy (or what I'd call, 'tactics'). What is the nature of this strategy? It is to:

1. Support the organization's mission. If you are a shoe store, your mission is to sell shoes. So a good strategy for a shoe store will include selling shoes.

2. Support the organization's journey to sustainability. If you are a shoe store, people might not wear shoes forever, so have a backup plan.

3. Satisfy multiple objectives of a diverse set of organizational stakeholders. If you are a shoe store, your customers might want shoes that light up when you walk, allow you to fly like Hermes, and cost a nickel. The government of the USA might want you to pay taxes, but it also might want you to not treat Malaysian kids like slaves. The people who own stock in your company might want good dividends and for you to cut costs by treating Malaysian kids like slaves. Try to develop a strategy that does all or some of this.

4. Prepare the organization for a sustainable future. If you are a shoe store, people might not wear shoes forever, so have a backup plan. This is pretty much the same as point 2. That is, they are saying the same thing only using different words.

Bullshit Summary
Word Counts

Breakthrough: 3
Organization: 7
Strategy: 6
Sustainability: 4

So the next time some jackass on the Internet, say Andrew Hanson, tells you that college is great and not a complete waste of time and money, just look him in the eye and say "it's shit like this, Andy! It is SHIT like THIS."

I Hope I Die Before I Get Old

2011-10-25T20:10:00.000-07:00

Two ruminations on age:

1. "I miss being the age when I thought I would have my shit together by the time I was the age I am now."

2. I drove to the store today and on my way back home, 'Sultans of Swing' came on the radio. I was almost home, so I was forced- FORCED as if by invisible chains!- to listen to the last third of it just sitting in my car in my parking spot with the volume cranked up to 25. I hope I never get so old that I don't compulsively do that.

Reaction: What Else is New?

2011-09-14T08:21:00.000-07:00

One Mr. Andrew Hanson has asked me to respond to this article written by David Brooks of the New York Times on the subject of kids these days and their morality. A summary quote:

It’s not so much that these young Americans are living lives of sin and debauchery, at least no more than you’d expect from 18- to 23-year-olds. What’s disheartening is how bad they are at thinking and talking about moral issues.

1. Soft prejudice of low expectations alert!
2. I'd contend that this poor moral reasoning is pervasive not just in 18- to 23-year-olds, but throughout American society, including some of our more famous war-mongering NYTimes Columnists. Is that petty of me? Maybe.

The editorial goes on to explain that young people lack the moral vocabulary necessary to articulate why something is right or wrong, so instead they make moral choices based on feelings, intuitions, and convictions. Morality is not decided by religious tenets (as I hold), nor is it decided on by a community through social mores and customs (as Brooks mentions later), nor is it reasoned out from categorical imperatives ("Act only according to that maxim whereby you can, at the same time, will that it should become a universal law."), nor is it made on the basis of what will cause the greatest good for the greatest number (Andrew), nothing. It's just, like, what I feel in my heart is right, you know? And what's right for me might not be right for you.

Brooks says that at the heart of this thinking lies a deep belief in individualism. I'd say that it's less a matter of individualism, and more a matter of not offending anyone under any circumstances lest we be offended in turn. We are all pretty, pretty snowflakes with unique dreams, ambitions, hopes, and views on what's right and what's wrong, and anyone who rains on that parade can hurt our self-esteem.

A few cases in point on this phenomenon (and yes they'll mostly be religious because I find public reporting of religion fascinating and my moral thinking is inextricably tied to religious thinking):

1. Religious Ecumenism after Sept 11.

Imam Al-Hajj Talib ‘Abdur-Rashid of the Mosque of Islamic Brotherhood spoke of the terrorist attacks as a baptism not by water, but by ash, the results of which forced people around the world to become aware of their common humanity. No matter how people refer to God, he said, whether it be Allah, Yahweh, or any number of names, it is the same God, uniting all people.

Pretty self-explanatory, this view has been around a long time (when were the Unitarians around- 1850? Earlier? Isn't Ba'hai basically a synthesis of this but from much earlier?) Anyway, rather than making absolute objective religious or moral claims, ecumenism is an attempt to sanitize these claims and make them subjective.

2. Michele Bachmann's Church Says the Pope is the Anti-Christ

This was a fascinating story to me a few months ago when it popped up, not only because Michele Bachmann was a member of the same 'strict Lutheran synod with controversial views of Catholicism' that I am, but because it was an excellent lens through which popular views of religion could be viewed. The reason why the story was so sensational was that of course Michele Bachmann can't have these views- that would be offensive to Catholic voters! Is she really comfortable with offending the 120 million Catholics of this country!?!

But lost from most of the discussion was a recognition of what the Protestant Reformation was actually about. Is grace infused into us, or is it imputed? Are we declared not-guilty before God on the basis of our own righteousness which God graciously helps us to attain, or on the basis of Christ's righteousness which is credited to us through faith? Those are two really, really, really different beliefs, and strong conviction in either one of them flies in the face of this moral individualism that David Brooks is talking about.

3. Columnist Ann Coulter Shocks Cable TV Show, Declaring 'Jews Need to Be Perfected by Becoming Christians'

DEUTSCH: Tell me what — why this would be a better world? Let's give you — I'm going to give you — say this is your show.

COULTER: Well, OK, take the Republican National Convention. People were happy. They're Christian. They're tolerant. They defend America, they —

DEUTSCH: Christian — so we should be Christian? It would be better if we were all Christian?

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: We should all be Christian?

COULTER: Yes. Would you like to come to church with me, Donny?

DEUTSCH: So I should not be a Jew, I should be a Christian, and this would be a better place?

COULTER: Well, you could be a practicing Jew, but you're not.

DEUTSCH: I actually am. That's not true. I really am. But — so we would be better if we were — if people — if there were no Jews, no Buddhists —

COULTER: Whenever I'm harangued by —

DEUTSCH: — in this country? You can't believe that.

COULTER: — you know, liberals on diversity —

DEUTSCH: Here you go again.

COULTER: No, it's true. I give all of these speeches at megachurches across America, and the one thing that's really striking about it is how utterly, completely diverse they are, and completely unself-consciously. You walk past a mixed-race couple in New York, and it's like they have a chip on their shoulder. They're just waiting for somebody to say something, as if anybody would. And —

DEUTSCH: I don't agree with that. I don't agree with that at all. Maybe you have the chip looking at them. I see a lot of interracial couples, and I don't see any more or less chips there either way. That's erroneous.

COULTER: No. In fact, there was an entire "Seinfeld" episode about Elaine and her boyfriend dating because they wanted to be a mixed-race couple, so you're lying.

DEUTSCH: Oh, because of some "Seinfeld" episode? OK.

COULTER: But yeah, I think that's reflective of what's going on in the culture, but it is completely striking that at these huge megachurches — the idea that, you know, the more Christian you are, the less tolerant you would be is preposterous.

DEUTSCH: That isn't what I said, but you said I should not — we should just throw Judaism away and we should all be Christians, then, or —

COULTER: Yeah.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Well, it's a lot easier. It's kind of a fast track.

DEUTSCH: Really?

COULTER: Yeah. You have to obey.

DEUTSCH: You can't possibly believe that.

COULTER: Yes.

DEUTSCH: You can't possibly — you're too educated, you can't — you're like my friend in —

COULTER: Do you know what Christianity is? We believe your religion, but you have to obey.

DEUTSCH: No, no, no, but I mean —

COULTER: We have the fast-track program.

DEUTSCH: Why don't I put you with the head of Iran? I mean, come on. You can't believe that.

COULTER: The head of Iran is not a Christian.

DEUTSCH: No, but in fact, "Let's wipe Israel" —

COULTER: I don't know if you've been paying attention.

DEUTSCH: "Let's wipe Israel off the earth." I mean, what, no Jews?

COULTER: No, we think — we just want Jews to be perfected, as they say.

DEUTSCH: Wow, you didn't really say that, did you?

COULTER: Yes. That is what Christianity is. We believe the Old Testament, but ours is more like Federal Express. You have to obey laws. We know we're all sinners —

DEUTSCH: In my old days, I would have argued — when you say something absurd like that, there's no —

COULTER: What's absurd?

DEUTSCH: Jews are going to be perfected. I'm going to go off and try to perfect myself —

COULTER: Well, that's what the New Testament says.

DEUTSCH: Ann Coulter, author of "If Democrats Had Any Brains, They'd Be Republicans," and if Ann Coulter had any brains, she would not say Jews need to be perfected. I'm offended by that personally.

I have absolutely no idea what Ann Coulter meant when she says that Christianity is like Judaism plus Federal Express. But that's not really my point. My point is that Donny Deutsch is absolutely flabbergasted that anyone besides the head of Iran could believe that their religion is true, and that as a corollary in a perfect world all people would practice that true religion.

Yes, kids, that's part of my thesis: America today in a lot of ways is kind of like Donny Deutsch. Stop the presses.

Anyway, those are just three things that popped into my head immediately. I could waste even more time finding others including bad arguments against gay marriage and abortion, but I won't because I think you get the point, and I think David Brooks would agree with me that those examples I cite are the sorts of things he's talking about.

I'll instead let fly a few armchair ruminations as to why I think this moral individualism among Americans has increased of late.

Armchair Rumination #1: Self-Esteem is King

Back in the day (by which I mean the 1950's having never lived through them) children could be expected to be raised in a harsh environment of criticism, violence, and cruelty. And just as the harsh environment of Arrakis gave rise to the powerful and strong Fremen, these children grew up to be moral giants. Teachers, parents, and peers didn't care about your feelings. They just cared if you were right. So if you said something morally stupid like 'It's ok for humans to have sex with animals because they probably have fun having sex with us, so no harm no foul' you would immediately be punched in the face, verbally harassed, etc., etc.

But then people got all hot and bothered about Self-Esteem. Maybe it was Abraham Maslow and his pyramid of needs, or that one psychologist with the pigeons and the bells, or maybe it was Raffi, I don't know. Some psychologist/children's musical artist from the 50's and 60's. And all of a sudden, no one can tell anyone else to shape up or ship out because that hurts their self-esteem. And that's why kids these days are water-soft.

Armchair Rumination #2: Moralistic Therapeutic Deism

David Brooks writes that once upon a time people did some moral thinking by grounding it in religion: this action is good if God says it is good, this action is bad if God says that it is bad. Therefore, it would logically follow that if society becomes less religious and more secular, we would lose this important source of moral decision-making.

But it's not just the case that fewer and fewer young people in America are going to church. Moral decision making skills are being hurt because even those young adults that do go to church aren't being taught very well there. The go-to book on this is probably Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers which says that kids these days are very weak on many points of doctrine and instead have religious beliefs that are a mashed-up jumble, but mostly have these parts in common (stolen shamelessly from Wikipedia):

1. There is a God or a higher intelligence, but he's mostly watching over you and me like Santa Claus.

2. God wants people to be good, nice, and fair to each other, as taught in the Bible and by most world religions. (Remember what I said about ecumenism?)

3. The central goal of life is to be happy and to feel good about oneself. (Remember what I said about self-esteem?)

4. God does not need to be particularly involved in one's life except when God is needed to resolve a problem. That is, God is kind of like a giant vending machine that you only need to go to when you're hungry for some M&M's (or a job, or a girlfriend, or healing from cancer).

5. Good people go to heaven when they die.

This is called moralistic therapeutic deism. Please note that anyone denying the existence of moralistic therapeutic deism may be a moralistic therapeutic deist themselves!

But wait. Surely the Moralistic part of the Moralistic Therapeutic Deism catchphrase means that kids these days are all over the subject of morality, right?

Weeeeelllllllll...not really. Just because you believe that people should be moral or will be rewarded for being moral doesn't mean that you have a good basis for determining what is moral and what is not. And when you jettison the heavier parts of Christianity like doctrine and creeds, you're not left with much of anything with which you can make those decisions. Let's see this effect in action:

I mean, yeah, the Bible talks about how homosexuality is wrong and stuff, but I'm not going to be a bad person and get all in your face about it. The Bible was written by old men 2000 years ago, so not all of it applies today. And gay people are just acting the way they were made and the way they feel, so who am I to tell them differently? They can't change who they are.

If all of the theological tools were in our toolkit, we could critique this statement by saying that it contradicts a few very important doctrines: the inspiration of Scripture, Original Sin (or Total Depravity), regeneration, the sixth commandment. But if you don't know what those are (and Moralistic Therapeutic Deists probably don't, or don't think much of them) then you're just left with saying that that might work for you but it doesn't work for me.

And stuff.

Armchair Rumination #3: Changing Media Landscape

If the main driver of moral individualism is that you don't want to offend anyone, moral individualism may increase if the costs of offending people increase or the risks of offending people increase.

Let's take a simple situation: you think that it's wrong for people to wear Nike shoes because Nike hires slave kids in China to make them. Therefore, you see a person wearing these shoes and you tell them face-to-face that they support child slavery. They get pretty offended at you, but you don't care because it's just one guy.

Then you end up writing in to the paper and they publish your editorial about child slavery. You've now offended like 100 people who wear Nikes and will never buy the paper ever again.

Then you end up publishing an article on PolicyMic and end up offending 10,000 people who wear Nike shoes, all of whom leave PolicyMic in disgust.

If every schmo with a cause does this, Media outlets then end up having to adopt one of two strategies as their available market grows:

1. Don't say anything important that could offend anyone, lest it reduce viewership.
2. Do make really aggressive moral claims, but have it drive all of your offended readers away so that you're just preaching to the choir. Hopefully you'll have enough people left to be profitable, and those people will never leave because they think other media outlets are wishy-washy.

I call these the CNN and FoxNews strategies.

Both strategies tend to dull our moral reasoning. In the first case, it's because you're by definition not allowed to say anything offensive (and hence of moral interest). In the second case, it's because everyone already agrees with you: why supply reasons?

Three unfalsifiable ruminations? MY JOB HERE IS DONE.

(Update: added a link to Andrew Hanson's discussion of the same topic. How we arrive at similar conclusions using diametrically opposed reasoning is one of the hallmarks of our friendship.)

You have that luxury

2011-02-10T18:11:00.000-08:00

Dear David,

I don't know your history, so I can't be sure what has led you to pen this sick, twisted post, clearly written in order to further marginalize those of us who can't grow the thick beautiful facial hair that you apparently take for granted. Your complaints about not finding women fall on deaf ears and hairless upper lips. I constantly see jerks like you prancing around with women they can trust, buying each other beers, watching sports together, and slowly stroking that thick, lustrous mustache you can apparently "produce very easily."

Hey David, I got some news for you. Some of us CAN'T easily produce a beautiful mustache on our beautiful Wisconsin faces in front of our big brain full of expertise in both civil AND environmental engineering. Some of us have mustaches that make us look like rat people. Some of us only had one major and don't really understand Apocalypse Now. Some of us have been waiting for a product like the BeerStache our entire lives, and thank God that Facebook brought it to our attention.

So thanks David C. Miller. Thanks for reminding me what a reject I am for trying to spend the few seconds that I bring my beer bottle up to my lips in the world of a guy who's got it all. The guy who has it all, and apparently think it's still necessary to prove their place in the social hierarchy by kicking the mustacheless guy when he's down.

I hope you're proud of yourself.

--Anonymous

Dear Anonymous, if that really is your name,

How dare you.

How dare you tarnish the reputation of our nation's oppressed mustachio'd class with your rank historical revisionism.

Have you forgotten the place of the mustache in Western Civilization? Have you forgotten who invented shaving? It was the Romans, who believed that shaving marked them as being more civilized than the surrounding hirsute barbarians, who they then went on to pillage, destroy, and attack with their Praetorians and, later, their knights, (or perhaps their horsemen if they failed to research Guilds quickly). People with mustaches were fed to the lions in the Coliseum.

Skip ahead two thousand years to learn of the only history that really matters: the History of America. America was founded on the principle that all men are created equal. And to defend that principle, over 600,000 Americans (most of them with mustaches) gave their lives in the Civil War.

But America again turned her back on those who built her. Between 1860 and 1913, every single American President had a mustache or beard except for Andrew Johnson who was impeached for not having one, and William McKinley, who was assassinated before he could grow his. There have been no mustaches since. There have been two World Wars.

Meanwhile, there again grew an association between those civilized men without facial hair and those uncivilized barbarians with it. Does Tony Hayward, the CEO of British Petroleum, wear a mustache? Did Frank Zappa? Which of the two is more accepted in Corporate America?

We live in a world where all the expressions of individualism, of uniqueness, of non-conformity, are to be subordinated to the sanitized Will of the Almighty Dollar. And since it is easier for those with mustaches to shave them off than for those without them to grow them, that is the image we all must be made in.

For you to come in against that backdrop and accuse me of looking down my nose at you for not being able to grow a mustache is to ignore the great struggles people with mustaches face even today. For example, the average nominal price of a mustache ride remains at just five cents, even as inflation has eroded its purchasing power to almost nothing. This has occurred even as some grow richer and richer, leading to what economists call The Great Stagnation.

And now you say you want to have a novelty beer bottle mustache. Oh no. Don't, don't, don't tell me about my world. Don't tell me about my world! I mean you just wanna have your fling with like the mustache from the other side of town. Then you're going to put the bottle down, you're going to marry some rich prick who your parents will approve of and just sit around with the other trust fund babies and talk about how you went slumming too, once.

You are a fraud. You want all the sympathy and attention that a mustache can generate, but you don't want to go through the sacrifice it truly takes to deserve it. You can put that bottle down, and off goes that mustache with it. No pain. No blood. If you want a mustache again, it is just a beer away; you needn't wait a few weeks. Frosting never gets caught in your mustache. Your mustache never itches. You are a genetic prince playing at being a pauper, secure in the knowledge that if you ever really get in trouble, you can always retreat to your hairless castle.

But a beer bottle mustache is not a real mustache. Just as cohabitation is a cheap imitation and perversion of marriage, a beer bottle mustache is a cheap imitation and perversion of a real mustache. Your covetousness will not be placated by a piece of plastic. Your envy will not end even if you do end up purchasing a BeerStache. You'll look at something else someone has (a goatee, sideburns, a full beard) and covet that next. Your envy will grow even if your hair follicles will not. And no matter how many times you try and attach the object of your desire to the side of a beer bottle, you'll know in your heart that it isn't real. It's a chasing after the wind.

Cuz Saving Our Planet is the Thing to Do

2011-02-05T08:25:00.000-08:00

When people at parties tell you about the Internet and how it's changed the way we work and live, leading to huge gains in productivity and the freedom of information and overthrow of dictators, I want you to think of the above picture. Facebook is a billion-dollar company that makes money by...uhhh...targeted advertising? Maybe? Does anyone really know? I know you can pay facebook and they'll send your friends a happy birthday cake or whatever, but I'm pretty sure it's mostly the targeted advertising. Maybe people who make the apps have to pay a fee to get facebook to post them? I don't know.

But I do know that there are very few places that annoy me as much with their advertising as Facebook. Sure, there's that mother of 2 who lost 50lbs. of belly fat by taking a pill. That's annoying. But this is at a whole other level.

I've never met the woman with the eye-black and sports jersey who wants to buy me drinks. It's possible that she's really nice, likes sports, and honestly, truly, wants me to have a drink for free because she is charitable and wants me to be happy. But I'm also really sure that thetaoofbadass.com is not my kind of place. It's openly manipulative, slightly misogynistic, and just generally juvenile in its view of human interaction. And I know this within 10 seconds of reading the ad that that's exactly what thetaoofbadass is all about.

I don't want to learn a technique to get girls to buy me drinks. I want to meet a woman I like and trust that sometimes buys me drinks, and who I sometimes buy drinks for, but we mostly just buy ourselves drinks when we want them. And if she likes sports and doesn't care who knows, then ok, and if she doesn't like sports, no big deal.

There's a similar advertising failing with the BeerStache. It's not that something you clip onto the side of a beer bottle that looks like a mustache isn't cool. I can produce my own mustache very easily, thankyouverymuch. It's that Facebook is a place for defining your identity: what you look like, who your friends are, what you like and dislike, your causes, concerns, jokes, videos, and games. And defining myself as 'the kind of person who clips a fake mustache on a beer bottle' is just entirely foreign to my (carefully cultivated) Facebook self-image. Again, I've never met the two young ladies with mustaches drinking beer at what appears to be a rocking party. Perhaps they have many virtues. But I'm pretty sure that we would not get very far in a conversation. (This is what a psychologist would call 'projection' of my personal hangups and distastes onto the blank beer-swilling slates of these two women as an explanation of how they must behave)

And as much as I like ROCKER girls, the dyed hair, Johnny-Depp-in-Pirates-of-the-Caribbean eye shadow, look-I'm-not-smiling-in-my-picture-because-I'm-quirky-and-countercultural expession, and complete lack of a front of a shirt are all signals to me that there is no place in my identity for a complementary part like this, like her. Not that there seems to be a place in my identity for a complementary part like anyone, but you get the point.

As for the MBA in Sustainability, I'd consider myself lucky to one day get a job where my immediate supervisor will have an MBA in Sustainability and will constantly talk about 'best practices' and 'lean processes' and the 'triple bottom line' while I roll my eyes and dream of a world without MBAs.

I can take it if She can!

2011-01-14T19:39:00.000-08:00

With the coming of the Great Recession, many eyes in imprisoned unemployment turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of Graduate School. Madison became the great embarkation point. But not everybody could get to Madison directly, and so, a tortuous, roundabout refugee trail sprang up. Eau Claire to La Crosse, across the Mississippi to Winona, then by train, or auto, or foot, across the frozen wastes to Minneapolis in Norwegian Minnesota. Here, the fortunate ones, through money, or influence, or luck, might obtain admissions letters and scurry to Graduate School, and from Graduate School to the Real World. But the others wait for their applications to be reviewed in Minneapolis and Madison.

And wait.
And wait.
And. Wait.

New Years Resolutions

2010-12-29T15:12:00.000-08:00

Today is a good day I think to resolve that New Years resolutions are kinda strange.

I'm not here to make my own resolutions. That could be potentially productive and not a waste of my time, whereas I tend to do only those things that are a colossal waste of time. No, I'm here to snarkily criticize the New Years resolutions of others.

A local radio station was airing the New Years resolutions of people who called in, and it was going about as well as you'd expect. After all, who calls into a radio station to share their New Years Resolution? What goes through the mind of such a person? Do they not have the kind of self-restraint or introspection required to determine that the contents of what they're about to say shouldn't be shared with anyone, let alone the wide audience available via radio?

Anyway, callers are limited to three resolutions. One woman lists these:

1. To lose some weight, of course.
2. To be better professionally and as a person.
3. To spend more time with her family.

First of all, that's four resolutions, lady. And second of all, when you resolve to be a better person, you make every other resolution redundant: being a better person already implies being in better health, being more productive at work, and being closer to your family.

This will cheer me up

2010-10-23T12:45:00.001-07:00

Normally, facebook is pretty good about knowing what's going on in my life, and my personal tastes in single ladies, music, and Jim Doyle. But sometimes it's good to know that the artificial intelligence can get things completely backwards, too. Be happy, everyone: facebook becoming self-aware and playing nice games of thermonuclear war and Farmville is less likely than we thought.

Sidenote: Anyone who gives or gets the atheism shirt for Christmas gets a sweet visit from the irony fairy.

I'll be less cryptic

2010-10-14T20:59:00.000-07:00

Or more accurately, I'll let Al Mohler express exactly what I was thinking in my last post.

I won't light a candle, but I wish I could set hearts aflame

2010-10-11T15:55:00.000-07:00

Homophobia doesn't lead to repentance. Guilt might, but the Accuser was a murderer from the beginning and knows how to make people feel guilty, too. And believing that there can be no forgiveness is the last thought that went through Judas' mind.

Maybe if that kid knew just what happened on a Friday two thousand years ago he'd still be alive. Maybe others would too. But how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?

But what shall we preach? That there is no law and therefore no transgression?

And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Jeremiah Was A Pretty Good Prophet

2010-10-07T20:23:00.001-07:00

Tonight's facebook ad:

No more after this, I promise.

Nice Try, Facebook

2010-09-27T16:31:00.000-07:00

I also want women to dress modestly, with decency and propriety, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or expensive clothes, but with good deeds, appropriate for women who profess to worship God.

Grade Inflation In Everything

2010-09-11T19:07:00.001-07:00

Tonight, Alabama plays Penn State, who is starting a new QB. His stats on the night: 13/29, 144 Yards, 0 TD, 2 INT. That's an NCAA QB rating of 72.4, or an NFL QB rating of 31.4 (no, I don't know why that's different). This is the reason why Penn State is currently down by 3 touchdowns.

The play-by-play announcer asks the color commentator what grade he would give the new QB's night.

"I'd give him a B-. Lots of room for improvement, but not bad for a guy in his first big game."

I weep for the future of Higher Education in this country.

Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus

2010-09-05T10:34:00.000-07:00

Church services aren't supposed to be tailored exactly to specific people, and we shouldn't get upset if the music is not to our liking or the pastor doesn't preach the sermon we want him or expect him to, but this morning's sermon and service were just excellent.

The Law was preached not to club other people with, but to convict listeners of their sin and to guide them in their lives of sanctification. The Gospel was preached as the solution to that sin and as a power to follow that guide and live a sanctified life. It was expository preaching from scripture, centered on Jesus Christ. There was Holy Communion, too. For those keeping score with your Small Catechisms, there was lots of means of grace in Word and Sacrament. Oh man, it was excellent.

Your three lessons for the 15th Sunday after Pentecost:

Proverbs 25:6,7

Do not exalt yourself in the king's presence,
and do not claim a place among great men;

it is better for him to say to you, "Come up here,"
than for him to humiliate you before a nobleman.

James 2:1-13

My brothers, as believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ, don't show favoritism. Suppose a man comes into your meeting wearing a gold ring and fine clothes, and a poor man in shabby clothes also comes in. If you show special attention to the man wearing fine clothes and say, "Here's a good seat for you," but say to the poor man, "You stand there" or "Sit on the floor by my feet," have you not discriminated among yourselves and become judges with evil thoughts?

Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? But you have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?

If you really keep the royal law found in Scripture, "Love your neighbor as yourself," you are doing right. But if you show favoritism, you sin and are convicted by the law as lawbreakers. For whoever keeps the whole law and yet stumbles at just one point is guilty of breaking all of it. For he who said, "Do not commit adultery," also said, "Do not murder." If you do not commit adultery but do commit murder, you have become a lawbreaker.

Speak and act as those who are going to be judged by the law that gives freedom, because judgment without mercy will be shown to anyone who has not been merciful. Mercy triumphs over judgment!

Luke 14:1,7-14

One Sabbath, when Jesus went to eat in the house of a prominent Pharisee, he was being carefully watched. When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: "When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, 'Give this man your seat.' Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, 'Friend, move up to a better place.' Then you will be honored in the presence of all your fellow guests. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."

Then Jesus said to his host, "When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous."

Before the service, I said to myself, "Here we go. A service on humility. A little boring, but it's a virtue and one I'm in need of, certainly."

The opening hook of the sermon started out cheesy. In the Grand Tradition of Sports Metaphors, Analogies, and Allusions, it was: "Are you ready? Are you excited? It's only one week away. It's almost time...for Football season! You may be waiting to find out which teams are good, which players are good, which coaches are the best. Not me. No, I'm excited to watch the touchdown celebrations. A running back or wide receiver will score for his team, and he'll do a dance or pull a stunt to let everyone know that he is a superior athlete, that he is the center of attention, that he should be on all the cameras and be talked about on TV."

Okay. *rolleyes*, right? Yes, we should all strive to be humble and not makes fools of ourselves on national TV. Good moral of the story, see you next week (provided the Packers have the late game).

But it got better- much better. The pastor explained exactly how it tied in with the scripture readings. How the guy who wrote Proverbs, King Solomon, had seen God in a vision or dream, and how God had told him that he would give Solomon anything he asked for. And rather than ask for power or money or influence or notoriety, Solomon asked for wisdom. Quite a humble request! So we have a bad example and a good example of humility so far.

Then the pastor tied in what Solomon wrote into what Jesus said in the Gospel reading. It's practically the same idea just expressed twice: if you take an important place for yourself, the king/guy holding the feast (God) will make you move
for a more distinguished guest. But if you take a humble place, God will exalt you. The pastor explained that this is entirely contrary to our way of thinking. We are important! We are good! We deserve a place of honor! Pride is self-centered, and self-exalting. The world expects us to be prideful, even encourages us to be prideful. We aren't relying on God, but on ourselves.

Using the Law to convict the congregation of sin? Check.

Then, he asked a very important question: why should we be humble? Because God tells us to? That's one reason, and a good one, but it wasn't what the pastor focused on. We should be humble because Jesus, the only begotten Son of God was humble. It was because of our pride and our sin that he humbled himself. The King of Kings and Lord of Lords was heralded by angels, who said that the promised Messiah had come down from Heaven to Earth and had been born not in a palace, but in a stable. The everlasting unchanging God grew in wisdom and stature. The faithful God who had led the Israelites out of captivity was betrayed by one of his closest friends, denied by another, and abandoned by the rest. He was crucified for our sins, died, and was buried. He descended into hell.*

But he rose from the dead as the only proof we will ever need that our sins are forgiven and we will rise one day too if we have faith in him.

So that's why we should be humble: because Jesus was. When we are humble, we are confessing that God was humble enough to become a man and take our place. When we are humble enough to rely entirely on God's grace instead of our own efforts, that's exactly when we are most strong. And we have the power to be humble because of what he did for us.

Fin.

What a great sermon. It was genuinely surprising, it got better as it went along, it tied the readings together, it was focused on Christ, it preached Law and Gospel, it understood sanctification. It's the second I've ever heard him preach (and I think the third he's given here- his installation was last month). If they're all going to be this good, I think St. Mark's is in capable hands for a long, long time.

*Sidenote: I remember being taught that the descent into hell was part of Jesus' glorification, not humiliation. It was declaring the victory that he had accomplished through his death; it didn't involve suffering.

I Am Truly Moderate

2010-08-16T11:50:00.000-07:00

Behold!

I stand at the fulcrum between Michelle Obama and Glenn Beck, Democrats and Republicans, the Haves and Have-Nots, the secular and the religious, the farmers and the bankers, the modern and the postmodern.

If ever there was a man whose opinions should and must be catered to, I Am That Man. I expect to be appeased. I demand satisfaction. My attention is short, my love fickle, my influence unimaginable, and my allegiance easily bought.

First one to buy me ice cream gets my vote.

My List of Petty Personal Vendettas Grows Ever Longer

2010-08-12T14:07:00.000-07:00

Go fuck yourself, George Will.

And should be recognized as such

2010-08-05T12:31:00.000-07:00

You cunning worker, Daedalus!
Inventing something new
Of wax and feather stitched together
You fashioned them and flew
Above the foaming wine dark sea
Below the sun and sky
But sons are harder things than wings
To craft after they die

With All These Things That I've Done

2010-07-28T07:45:00.000-07:00

I couldn't sleep earlier this week, so I decided to go back over my blog posts from a long time ago, just for larfs. Viewing my past writing was instructive because it created enough distance that I could see where I was being unclear (and where I was being obstinate and petty). I also would like to give more credit to Jordan and Andrew in particular. At the time, I thought you guys were being deliberately contrarian, and whether this was born of active malice, ignorance, or the puckish glee of arguing on the Internet, I couldn't say.

But now I'm beginning to grudgingly admit that you guys are pretty smart. I submit to you the following points that I'm guilty of and would like to either recant or delve into more fully:

1. Leftist Political Hackery

Most clearly seen in this post, but also in some others dealing with environmentalism, politics, and Sarah Palin (HAHAHAHAHAHA).

Is it a back-handed compliment to say that Sarah Palin is not a hypocrite and this is especially notable considering she's a Republican? Yes. That's a hacky thing to say. I'm recant the statement that 8 hypocritical Republicans constitutes 'many', even if those 8 include the Speaker of the House, House Majority Leader, and the Republican nominee for President of the United States. Since this apparently needs saying, there are crooked Republicans and good Democrats, and there are good Republicans and crooked Democrats, and neither governing philosophy leads to crookedness of necessity. I used to be of the opinion that this only mattered because only Republicans are guilty of making political hay out of their moral superiority, but Democrats have also sent us on plenty of guilt trips over welfare, health care, and torture.

2. My Modern-Jackass Philosophy of Science

I was a bad Bayesian. I was also an instrumentalist in the same post in which I fake-defended Sarah Palin. As a wannabe-engineer and not a scientist or philosopher, I pretty much don't know what I'm talking about most of the time. All we were ever explicitly taught was Popper, and as I understand it, the philosophy of science people have moved on. Falsifiability is a good thing for a scientific framework to have, but robustness, prediction, and explanatory power are necessary, too.

For example, I was doing some online organic chemistry reading the other day (I'm striving to be less of a crushing failure at life recently, so I'm trying to not lose my edge). And it turns out that Lewis Dot Structures are mostly incorrect and actually contribute to a misunderstanding of chemical bonding when you're not working with electron-rich atoms like oxygen. Molecular Orbital theory is more accurate, even though it takes longer to do. Both (and neither) give a picture of what happens in chemical bonding, but MO theory better predicts bond strengths AND has more explanatory power.

I'm willing to admit that Andy is pretty much always more correct than I am at philosophy of science stuff, with the notable exceptions of his recommending Daniel Dennett to me, along with calling me a science stopper. Science and religion are intensely important topics to me, and I have read lots of people calling for the compatibility of evolution and creation, but I've not yet seen a convincing argument combining both a scientifically sound theory of origin and theologically sound soteriology. Perhaps it's out there and I'm being obstinate again.

Also, I screwed up JS Mill hardcore.

3. Unclear Thoughts On Original Sin

If there is any topic that I wish I could understand and express more clearly, it is Original Sin. I can read or quote from Augustine, The Bondage of the Will, the Augsburg Confession, or St. Paul all I want, but Andrew and Jordan have never agreed with my views of Original Sin, and I suspect that this is because I do not present them clearly. Also, the only way of making my point is to quote scripture, the sufficiency of which Andrew and Jordan both deny. But frankly I'd be happy if they agreed I was interpreting the Bible correctly.

Consider this post on Romans 3, wherein Andrew says that people can choose to do good or evil and therefore have no innate proclivity towards one or the other. It does me (and him) no good to say that the deeds he considers good, if they are done without faith in God, are considered to be 'filthy rags' because surely this begs the question: if it truly is impossible without faith to please God, then no non-Christian can perform a Good Work. Because Andrew thinks that non-Christians can (and hence, do) perform actions that satisfy God, this is completely unconvincing to him. Jordan expresses the same thought here, and I respond similarly: the condemnation of sin is deserved, men are capable of outside obedience and works but incapable of inner or spiritual things, yadda yadda.

My discussions of ethics, morality, supererogation, justification, sanctification, and original sin are all tightly woven together and need to be clearer. I might spend some more time on them specifically in the future if I ever get around to more of Romans.

A Peculiar People

2010-06-06T11:04:00.000-07:00

I included 1 Peter 2:9-10 in my facebook status this afternoon as a way to remind myself and others of what we heard at the church service this morning. The ever-curious Andrew Hanson did not attend this church service and commented that he wanted to learn more of what this meant. So, that I might "always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks me to give the reason for the hope that I have", let me gently and respectfully explain what this means. Then, Andy can write a long blog post about what he meant by "Do you miss me, Miss Misery like you say you do?".

There were three different readings this morning, all of them tied together by a common theme. I'll quote some other passages that help explain these, but for the time being just read them and ask what they have in common.

Hosea 1:6-2:1

Some exposition: Hosea was an Old Testament prophet who lived around 750 B.C. After being united under Saul, David, and Solomon, Israel was split into a northern part (called Israel) and a southern part (called Judah) around 930 B.C. Hosea was from this northern kingdom, and his main job was to tell everyone in the northern kingdom that they were being unfaithful to God. As a symbol of this unfaithfulness, Hosea is commanded by God to "Go, take to yourself an adulterous wife [named Gomer] and children of unfaithfulness, because the land is guilty of the vilest adultery in departing from the LORD." The northern kingdom fell to Assyria in 722 B.C.

Anyway, we read:

Gomer conceived again and gave birth to a daughter. Then the LORD said to Hosea, "Call her Lo-Ruhamah, [which means "not loved"] for I will no longer show love to the house of Israel, that I should at all forgive them. Yet I will show love to the house of Judah; and I will save them—not by bow, sword or battle, or by horses and horsemen, but by the LORD their God."

After she had weaned Lo-Ruhamah, Gomer had another son. Then the LORD said, "Call him Lo-Ammi, [which means "not my people"] for you are not my people, and I am not your God.

"Yet the Israelites will be like the sand on the seashore, which cannot be measured or counted. In the place where it was said to them, 'You are not my people,' they will be called 'sons of the living God.' The people of Judah and the people of Israel will be reunited, and they will appoint one leader and will come up out of the land, for great will be the day of Jezreel.

"Say of your brothers, 'My people,' and of your sisters, 'My loved one.'

Even though Israel turns away from God (with terrible consequences), God still promises that Israel will be restored. He will take a group who is 'not his people' and, by his grace, make them 'his people'.

Matthew 15:21-28

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."

Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."

He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."

The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.

He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."

"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."

Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.

Jesus' ministry was first to the Jew, then to the Gentile. This Gentile woman recognizes this and knows that even the gracious crumbs that Jesus offers can help her daughter. Notice how this woman addresses Jesus: as Lord (that is, as the guy "in charge" of everything), as the Son of David (that is, as the Messiah, the chosen offspring of David), and eventually as God (shown when she kneels before him- the KJV translates this as 'then came she and worshiped him').

Even though Jesus has redeemed both Jews and Gentiles, his Earthly ministry was specifically first to the Jews. After the Great Commission, Jesus sends out his apostles to 'go and make disciples of all nations'. It's exactly this story of how God makes Jews and Gentiles into 'his people' that concerns all three readings.

1 Peter 2:9-10

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

Peter is speaking here to Christians in Asia Minor, both Jews and Gentiles, and he quotes Hosea. His point is that the spiritual restoration promised by Hosea finds its ultimate fulfillment in Jesus Christ. We are not looking for Jesus- we are in darkness and dead in our sins- but by his love, Jesus calls us into his wonderful light.

This isn't the only place in the New Testament where Hosea is referenced. The same motif (along with parts from 1 Peter that I didn't quote here about cornerstones and stumbling blocks) is used by Paul in his letter to the Romans:

Romans 9:22-26

What if God, choosing to show his wrath and make his power known, bore with great patience the objects of his wrath—prepared for destruction? What if he did this to make the riches of his glory known to the objects of his mercy, whom he prepared in advance for glory— even us, whom he also called, not only from the Jews but also from the Gentiles? As he says in Hosea:
"I will call them 'my people' who are not my people;
and I will call her 'my loved one' who is not my loved one," and,
"It will happen that in the very place where it was said to them,
'You are not my people,'
they will be called 'sons of the living God.' "

In contrast to 1 Peter, here Paul is interested in how God has made the Gentiles (who are 'not God's people') into 'God's people'. Hosea originally refers to Jews alone, Paul quotes him to talk about Gentiles, and Peter quotes Hosea to talk about both Jews and Gentiles.

The theme of the sermon this morning, based on 1 Peter 2, was "The Bug on the Windshield". The idea was taken from a story about a man driving in the Nort' Woods whose view of a beautiful sunset was obscured by a dead bug on the windshield. Even though the Christians Peter was writing to were heavily persecuted- surely there were many bugs on their windshields- they should still take comfort in the 'sunset' of God's grace in choosing them from eternity, in allowing them access to God through the priesthood of all believers, and in sending His son to die for them. We should take comfort in this, too.

So that's what I was talking about, Andrew: God's comforting grace as shown in election, in the priesthood of all believers, and in the atoning death of Christ.

Change Your Life

2010-05-30T07:57:00.000-07:00

I continue to watch the Today show nearly every morning despite its sensationalist journalism, lazy interviews, smarmy stories, and just all-around terribleness. But this morning's promo for the next entire week of the show was especially concentrated stupidity:

"Every woman knows, changing your hair can change your life!"

I'm Trying to Understand the Tea Party

2010-04-15T10:17:00.000-07:00

We were watching a PBS documentary a few nights ago about the history of health care reform. It was fun because it was very immediate (watch-history-as-it-happens) and also because it reminded me of events that I had forgotten about.

Remember when Obama campaigned for a public option and criticized Clinton for having an individual mandate?

Remember when Obama demanded that Congress pass the bill before the summer recess?

Remember when that summer recess went horribly, horribly wrong?

They had clips of all the people holding signs and shouting and whatever. Maybe it was a signal of the documentary's liberal bias that they only showed the krazies, but there were a lot of drawn-on Hitler mustaches and dead grandmothers involved.

They showed one man who was asked why he was at the rally who responded, "I'm here because President Obama is trying to replace our Republic with Socialism!"

I hate to be That Guy On The Internet who quibbles with definitions and apologizes for the atrocities of Communism and stuff, but I will anyway. What the man meant was, "I'm here because President Obama is trying to replace our Capitalism with Socialism!" Republicanism is a system of government where people elect representatives. Socialism is a system of economics where that said government owns stuff. It is not-at-all contradictory to be a socialist republic: indeed the United Soviet Socialist Republic claimed to be such, as does The People's Republic of China today.

Anyway, this is supposed to be about more than just snarkily criticizing a guy I saw on TV because I am a Democrat and he is a Republican and I am much smarter than he is. I'm trying to document and understand a certain part of the political landscape, the part that went to health care rallies in late-summer 2009 and is going to Tea Party rallies today.

Are these the same people?

I think so. I think they're connected. For one thing, they seem to include angry shouting and angry signs. Proof positive right there, I say! Further proof:

1. The populist argument. The rhetoric of both the Tea Party people and the Health Care people relies on a populist message: "The voice of The People is not being heard. In a poll, less than half of the people wanted health care reform. But Barack Obama wants it. Health Insurance Companies (in backroom deals) want it. The people don't want the government to spend all this money, but Obama is doing so anyway. The people don't want terrorists tried in criminal courts, but Eric Holder is trying to do so anyway."

2. The Republican argument. Barack Obama is a Democrat. His health care reform is opposed by Republicans. His domestic priorities are opposed by Republicans. His foreign policy priorities are opposed by Republicans. Therefore, people who oppose health care reform are Republicans, and probably oppose other stuff, too.

*I should note here that I am well aware of the "All squares are rectangles" angle to this. And, in fact, there have been a few polls that say that conflating Tea Partiers with Republicans is bad- only 49% say they are Republican, while 43% identify as Independent.

But come on. This is like those 'undecided voters' who have really made up their minds but enjoy being pandered to and asked their opinions. Also, because of increased polarization (and proportional increased lamenting of polarization), some people like to think of themselves as Very Special Snowflakes who are above the political fray because they are wise and conciliatory and moderately fair to both sides. But they vote party-line literally 100% of the time. I leave this point completely unsupported by facts because I am too lazy to cherry-pick evidence that agrees with me.

3. The Sarah Palin argument. Sarah Palin famously started the death panel rumor. She also was the keynote speaker at the National Tea Party Convention.

The National Tea Party Convention should not be confused with the Tea Party Movement. It's a broad movement, it has a lot of people, it's very amorphous, yadda, yadda. But whether or not Sarah Palin is co-opting the movement, whether it's an astro-turf movement, whether she only controls a small part, I don't know.

This is an entirely-too-long, entirely-too-boring way to say that there exists a political movement that unites opposition to health care reform, socialism, Obama, taxes, bailouts, and deficit spending. Why is it prevalent, and what are the things driving it? Some possibilities in the order I think of them:

1. Economic Unrest. The unemployment rate is really high, and when this happens, people like to congregate together with signs and yell "Rabble! Rabble! Rabble!"

2. Political Crying Over Spilled Milk. Barack Obama, a Democrat, is now the President, and this upsets some people greatly. Jimmy Carter (I think) said this opposition is a little racially motivated. Maybe, but I don't think so: if Hillary Clinton had been elected, it still would have hit the fan.

3. Fear of creeping socialism. Even though I think this fear is unjustified, I can understand how someone could be stirred to political action when they see the government seizing and recapitalizing banks, car companies, and spending lots of money on health care.

4. Populist anger in general. If fears of Socialism get conservatives involved in the movement, fears of special interests and Corporations get liberals involved. Liberals can look at bailouts as just giveaways to special interests. Perhaps they would be happier with nationalizing banks instead of just recapitalizing them, but they find common cause with movements opposing these policies.

5. Financial Future concerns. Health care reform, bailouts, and stimulus packages all cost money and hurt the long-term financial options for the country. Won't someone please think of the debt burden? I tend to think of this reason as an after-the-fact rationalization, but I'm sure there are some people who just hate deficits.

All of this matters because Democrats are running scared for re-election. If the Tea Party movement is influential and can be placated by balancing the budget (somehow), then Republican gains can be avoided by cutting spending.

But, if the movement is just channeled fears about the economy, all Democrats can do is hope that the economy improves. I know that's a boring political analysis. But remember, it's the economy, stupid!

This is rambling, unhelpful, and not insightful, but I really just felt like writing something today. I'll try to write about baseball, soon, I promise!

People are Strange

2010-03-18T14:12:00.000-07:00

I'm hesitant to devote any more attention to the John Edwards-Rielle Hunter trainwreck, but I was especially struck by the quote:

I understood what photos were being taken. It was my mistake to pose for them given I had no photo control or approval.

Ya think?

I propose this operational test for anyone posing for photographs that are intended to bolster their credibility:

Are you wearing pants?

This Never Gets Old

2010-03-13T10:01:00.000-08:00

O brave new world! O brave new world that has such people in it.

Avatar, Pantheism, and Environmentalism

2010-01-19T14:44:00.000-08:00

Those of you emerging from a six-month coma may be unfamiliar with all of the attention being paid to the film Avatar. It has broken box office records, and as of this posting has grossed $1.6 billion worldwide, giving James Cameron the top two spots in movie history. It is a technological marvel: the movie is shown in 3D and used motion-capture techniques and computers to create the Na'Vi, the blue-skinned alien race you see on all the posters.

But with great box office power comes great responsibility, and there have been many examinations of the underlying themes of the movie. The first that comes to mind is When Will White People Stop Making Movies Like Avatar?, which looks at the white guilt escapism found in the movie. I include a link to this because after seeing the first preview for Avatar, I immediately sang "Colors of the Wind" from Pocahontas and explained that I had just summarized Avatar so no one would have to see it. I was probably the very first person in America to make that joke.

But the real meat of this post has to do with the religious critiques of the movie and the connections between Pantheism and Environmentalism. Ross Douthat wrote an editorial in the New York Times about the pantheism on display in Avatar.

In Cameron’s sci-fi universe, this communion [with Nature] is embodied by the blue-skinned, enviably slender Na’Vi, an alien race whose idyllic existence on the planet Pandora is threatened by rapacious human invaders. The Na’Vi are saved by the movie’s hero, a turncoat Marine, but they’re also saved by their faith in Eywa, the “All Mother,” described variously as a network of energy and the sum total of every living thing.

If this narrative arc sounds familiar, that’s because pantheism has been Hollywood’s religion of choice for a generation now. It’s the truth that Kevin Costner discovered when he went dancing with wolves. It’s the metaphysic woven through Disney cartoons like “The Lion King” and “Pocahontas.” And it’s the dogma of George Lucas’s Jedi, whose mystical Force “surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together.”

But after namedropping Alexis de Tocqueville and Deepak Chopra, we get this:

Today there are other forces that expand pantheism’s American appeal. We pine for what we’ve left behind, and divinizing the natural world is an obvious way to express unease about our hyper-technological society. The threat of global warming, meanwhile, has lent the cult of Nature qualities that every successful religion needs — a crusading spirit, a rigorous set of ‘thou shalt nots,” and a piping-hot apocalypse.

Since Ross Douthat disagrees with pantheism, I wonder what he thinks about global warming. Has pantheism co-opted or misappropriated the rigorous set of 'thou shalt nots' from global warming? If pantheism isn't true, is global warming guilty by association? One other post of his that gives some insight is on the Precautionary Principle but it seems to suggest that the costs of environmental regulations are too high. I was hesitant to put words into his mouth or to use him as anecdotal evidence of a Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy joining environmental skepticism and religious conservatism, so I went looking for other cases.

And I found out that the Vatican doesn't much like Avatar either: "Vatican Radio said the movie 'cleverly winks at all those pseudo-doctrines that turn ecology into the religion of the millennium'." Again, I'm not sure exactly which pseudo-doctrines the Vatican is talking about. Is Barack Obama promoting those pseudo-doctrines? Is Michael Pollan? Is James Hansen? It's hard to tell.

But as I was listening to this Issues Etc. podcast like a good Confessional Lutheran, along came the line around the 10 minute mark:

You get the impression that ecology and relating to nature is kind of connected to religion, and as G.K. Chesterton, C.S. Lewis and many other people have suggested, when you stop believing in the God of the Bible, you need some kind of God-replacement, and so that [Environmentalism] element is there. It's interesting, as I was watching the film, I was kind of listing in my mind the different major scenes, and certainly the Green Ecology-- I almost thought there was a part of the Inconvenient Truth movie in there from Al Gore.

This is a long way for me to say that other people think environmentalism and pantheism are connected. I probably could have saved myself some time and brought up Captain Planet and his Planeteers taking their eco-marching orders directly from Gaia herself. But I would like to sever this connection between pantheism and environmentalism without damaging the integrity of environmentalism. That is, just because you don't like pantheism doesn't mean that environmental issues are bogus.

For starters, there is a very strong theistic case to be made in favor of environmentalism. Man is the final cap to all of Creation, and is given the following charge by God:

And God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground."

...

God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."

Environmentalism as Stewardship- that is, God creating man and giving him a role as caretaker for the rest of Creation- is hardly new, controversial, liberal, Democratic, French, or Socialist. At this point I could do a bunch of linking to Rick Warren, Rowan Williams, and other figures on the Theological Left that Conservatives love to hate. But even that Vatican statement that I linked to above implies that Nature is a creation to defend.

Secondly, pantheism focuses on finding God in Nature, or that God is in everything, and that by communing with Nature, man can be closer to God. But many environmental issues are framed not as respecting that force that unites every living thing, but as simple human self-interest. Climate change is an important issue not because it will hurt Gaia or polar bears, but because it will hurt humans. Emission standards are not set according to a level of acceptable harm to Eywa, but how much they will hurt people.

Angst! Angst! Angst!

2009-12-18T13:26:00.000-08:00

It would be one thing if people held opinions that differed from my own that I could respectfully agree with. It is quite another when they are madmen who in a just world would be shouted down from the rooftops. Trading Milton Bradley for Carlos Silva plus cash is so monumentally stupid that I question the sanity of anyone who would suggest such a thing.

In other news that makes me only mildly annoyed instead of inappropriately enraged, a close friend of mine believes something incorrect about a tongue twister. I will not share his name here, because I do not want potential future employers googling his name only to find out this career-threatening information.

Here is what he said:

How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck would[sic] chuck wood?
A woodchuck would chuck as much wood as a woodchuck would if a woodchuck would[sic] chuck wood.

Clearly, this is insane. For the following reasons:

1. It is completely meaningless, perhaps even Nihilistic if I knew what that meant. You are saying that "A=A" which, while true, does not need saying. If I asked "How much will it snow today?", it does me no good for you to say "As much as it will if it does". Or if I asked you "How many sugars do you want in your coffee?", it does me no good for you to reply "As many as I want". You are no Zen master.

2. It besmirches the industriousness of woodchucks. Woodchucks are fastidious animals. We can learn from them and follow their example. They would chuck as much wood as they possibly could, but due to the harsh physical and biochemical laws which govern the Universe, they do not have the physical capability to do so. To say that they would chuck as much as they would implies that the only thing stopping them is their will.

This is the best use of my time probably ever.

Stupidest Thing Lately Heard

2009-12-13T09:53:00.001-08:00

I'm watching the pregame show before the Packers VS Bears game. Howie Long decides to sermonize about Drew Brees, who does a chant before he plays his games. Howie says something about how the troops love it, and that it is no coincidence that the Saints are 12-0.

Why are the Saints undefeated? Because Drew Brees does a chant for the troops and the people of New Orleans still devastated by Hurricane Katrina.

Long goes on to say, "Do you hear that, Wall Street? Greed isn't good. Peyton Manning and Charles Woodson have donated millions of dollars to children's hospitals. It is no coincidence that they are both having MVP-caliber seasons."

Why are Payton Manning and Charles Woodson playing well? Because they donate money to charity.

Why is Rome strong? Because of their superior virtue.

The Latest Facebook Attack on Conservative Values

2009-11-21T09:48:00.000-08:00

By now you should all be aware of the ways facebook is undermining society with their recommendations of bands I don't like and their ads with pictures of girls with structurally unsound shirts. This is their latest:

I know absolutely no one else in the world is bothered by this. But I continue to carry the socially conservative fiscally liberal banner. For the children.

Emmy Rossum is totally pretty so shut up

2009-11-14T10:59:00.000-08:00

There's something about Special Knowledge that makes people feel cool. You know something that other people don't- that makes you special, unique, different. It makes you chosen. You can exploit this knowledge to your advantage- you are powerful. I'd like to examine three variations on this theme, two of which I will rail against with the snarky invective that all the kids are doing these days, one of which I engage in myself.

1. Emmy Rossum is totally pretty so shut up.

This is actually a reference to an old movie review I read for the movie The Phantom of The Opera. The reviewer said that they recommended the movie because they really liked the actress (Emmy Rossum) who played Christine. Unlike those other actresses like Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan who are vain, conceited, self-indulgent, and as ugly on the inside as they are "conventionally beautiful" on the outside, Ms. Rossum has an inner beauty that shines through the prism of her unconventional (yet striking) outer beauty.

Just shut up! Emmy Rossum is so conventionally beautiful that I don't know where to begin. I guess with a picture?

There is another story here about how people accept narratives about people they've never met. Emmy Rossum is maybe very nice. Maybe she's mean. I don't know! But I'm more interested in this kind of Special Knowledge. The reviewer thought he (she?) had special knowledge of Emmy Rossum's beauty. No one else thinks she is beautiful, but I have a secret: I think she's gorgeous.

2. Poker is gambling. Poker is gambling. Poker is gambling.

Last week, I spoke with someone about the World Series of Poker, which is probably the biggest poker tournament in the world. They show it on ESPN all the time. There is a mysterious guy with long hair, sunglasses, and a cowboy hat who throws cards really hard at bananas. There is an Everyman named Chris Moneymaker (!!!) who had a normal white-collar job as an accountant before he entered the WSOP and won the whole thing.

So the guy I was talking to said, "when you think about it, if you really know how to play poker, it's not really gambling. If you know the odds and how to read people, you can control the game, win the game, you can't lose."

Whaaaaaat? There are perhaps a few dozen people in the world who are truly 'professional' poker players. There are thousands who consider themselves good enough to be professional. But even with the odds in your favor, it's still a big risk. No matter how good you are at calculating strategy or reading your opponent, you can't win if you don't get good cards.

In contrast to the Emmy Rossum scenario, I think this kind of Special Knowledge exists, or is true. It is true that some people employ better betting strategies, or can predict how another player will act. But my interest is in how over-emphasized this knowledge is. People may possess it but overestimate its impact.

3. SABR! It began with a bloody 'S'!

SABR is the Society for American Baseball Research. Using well-known baseball statistics like batting average as well as new statistics of their own construction, SABR-metricians, as they are called, seek to explain and investigate the game of baseball using scientific (ish) methods.

And the knowledge that they generate is powerful! Other General Managers of baseball teams don't think that this player is very good, but we know that he's very good. We will get him on our team and have great success, great power. The Oakland Athletics made the playoffs regularly despite having a low payroll because they had this Special Knowledge. They haven't made the playoffs anymore because the beans were spilled, the cat was out of the bag, the Special Knowledge became Common.

I enjoy SABR-metrics because I like that story, and I like answering questions in trustworthy ways. But my fantasy baseball team was very mediocre. Again, perhaps this knowledge is true, but people who have it overestimate its worth.

These are thoughts without conclusions. I'm not exploring how Special Knowledge is good or bad, or the differences between these three cases. I'm just expounding on a subject I've been thinking about lately. But if I had to give any summary, I'd say it's important to know the limits and usefulness of your knowledge.

The Time Has Come to Push the Button

2009-10-14T21:45:00.000-07:00

Remember in The Dark Knight where they have two ships rigged with explosives, one full of criminals, the other full of non-felony Gothamites, and provide each of them with buttons that will explode the other ship, sparing themselves? If neither ship presses the button, they both get Blow'd Up after 30 minutes.

I thought that that was the weakest ethical dilemma involving death and buttons that cinema could produce. Until The Box. In The Box, there is a Big Red Button (on top of a box), where if you press it, you get a million dollars. But there's a catch: someone somewhere in the world dies that you don't know. I don't think it's supposed to be a big ethical teaser (so Andrew, please do not disparage me for my weak thesis, ungrounded assumptions, or errors in logic; I am against random murder, Raskolnikov), but it does show a disturbing and growing fascination in America with death and buttons. Or maybe it's just me. The movie is based on a book titled Button, Button. It's from the same guy who wrote I Am Legend. Say it with me: "Well, you know someone else was involved in that movie who in some ways is as famous as Leonardo Di Caprio. And his name is William Shakespeare. And some great movies have been made based on his plays: Hamlet, West Side Story, The Talented Mr. Ripley, Waterworld, Gladiator, Chocolat... "

Anyway, the best out-of-context sentence from the review for The Box:

He poses a lot more questions than he answers, and among the hypotheses you're left with are that Steward was bought back to life by aliens after NASA programs unwittingly alerted them to the humanity's[sic] presence and The Box is their way of testing our mettle before invading us.

I always enjoyed the sci-fi trope that aliens would use advanced technology to test us. I remember a Star Trek: Deep Space Nine book where Jake played a video game that demonstrated wisdom, compassion, and logic to prove to another alien race that humans were ok. Except it wasn't a game- it was real! It was Ender's Game meets Button, Button meets War Games (the only way to win was not to play). Man, if I could have told this story just 60 years ago, I'd be the most famous writer on the planet. And then it would be made into a movie!

Imagine this pithy one-liner from the alien: "Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found..." [quick-cut to face] [quick-cut to alien] [quck-cut to face] [quck-cut back to alien] "...wanting." BLAMMMMMMOOOOOOOO.

UPDATE
A poll on facebook asks, "Would you push The Box's red button?". The split is currently 56-44 in favor of not murdering a person for a million dollars.

Romans 4

2009-09-23T10:09:00.001-07:00

I've put this off for a looooong time! For that, I apologize. Romans is so big, so important, and so unpackable that it's become a little daunting. I want to cover everything, explain every reference, learn about every illustration, allusion, or point, and I end up doing nothing because there's always more to do. But it's silly to feel like that! If I miss stuff, I can always go back. It's a blog, not a final exam. Shipping is a feature!

I'm encouraged to go ahead with this by three things: a book I checked out intended to be a Bible-study of Romans, a commentary given to me by a friend, and an after-church Bible study I've been attending on Sundays. I'm in different places in Romans in each of these, so if I seem a little scatterbrained or connection-heavy, you'll understand why.

Let's get moving.

Abraham Justified by Faith

What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather, discovered in this matter? If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about—but not before God. What does the Scripture say? "Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness."

Now when a man works, his wages are not credited to him as a gift, but as an obligation. However, to the man who does not work but trusts God who justifies the wicked, his faith is credited as righteousness. David says the same thing when he speaks of the blessedness of the man to whom God credits righteousness apart from works:
"Blessed are they
whose transgressions are forgiven,
whose sins are covered.
Blessed is the man
whose sin the Lord will never count against him."

Paul uses two figures from the Old Testament (Abraham and King David) to further emphasize that we are saved through faith, not through our works. Aside from this fundamental point, this section also strengthens the idea that the Old Testament is tied to the New. Christ came not to found a brand new religion, but to serve as the Head and fulfillment of one that had existed since it was first promised to Satan in front of Adam and Eve that one of their offspring "will crush [Satan's] head, and you will strike his heel".

The picture that we are given in this section is one of an accounting book, or ledger, with assets and liabilities. God 'credits' the good things that Christ did into Abraham's account through Abraham's belief in Christ. Abraham's belief in Christ will be discussed a few chapters from now. David also says that God will not count a person's sins against them- they have been covered. We get rid of our liabilities and put them on Christ.

How do we get the right to do this? How do we switch these assets and liabilities? Some people were believing that we somehow earn this righteousness. Paul points out that the Bible doesn't say, "Abraham's belief earned him righteousness". It says "Abraham's belief was credited to him as righteousness".

From my Bible-study book:
1. Why was Abraham's faith not a work that earned the wage of righteousness?

This is a very important question! Sometimes we may think of faith itself as a good work, somewhat akin to helping old ladies cross the street. However, Paul also wrote in Ephesians that "it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God". Abraham's faith was a gift of God, not a work on Abraham's part.

2. In Psalm 32:1-2, David describes what God does when He credits righteousness to a person. How does David describe what God does?

An easy question: he says that God covers a person's sins and doesn't hold them against him. Jesus told this parable in Matthew 18: "the kingdom of heaven is like a king who wanted to settle accounts with his servants. As he began the settlement, a man who owed him ten thousand talents was brought to him. Since he was not able to pay, the master ordered that he and his wife and his children and all that he had be sold to repay the debt.

'The servant fell on his knees before him. 'Be patient with me,' he begged, 'and I will pay back everything.' The servant's master took pity on him, canceled the debt and let him go.'"

******************************************

Is this blessedness only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? We have been saying that Abraham's faith was credited to him as righteousness. Under what circumstances was it credited? Was it after he was circumcised, or before? It was not after, but before! And he received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. So then, he is the father of all who believe but have not been circumcised, in order that righteousness might be credited to them. And he is also the father of the circumcised who not only are circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised.

This argument might be a little hard to understand if we don't know more details of the life of Abraham. The scripture that Paul was quoting in the section before was from Genesis 15. In it, God promises to give Abraham offspring and land. It's not until two chapters (and 14 years) later in Genesis 17 that he is circumcised. It's not until hundreds of years later that Abraham's descendant Moses will receive the Ten Commandments and the rest of the law. Therefore, Abraham wasn't righteous due to his observation of the law or circumcision- they hadn't been given yet. Instead, Abraham is credited with righteousness through his believing the promises of God: the promises of land, offspring, and a certain member of those offspring named Jesus, the Messiah.

3. Remember the Jews' beliefs about circumcision. Why was it important that God declared Abraham righteous before he was circumcised?

This is important because it meant that salvation is for all people, both circumcised Jews and uncircumcised Gentiles.

4. Circumcision was a sign (pointer) and a seal (outward ratification and guarantee) of the righteousness Abraham had by faith. What are the signs and seals of a Christian's righteousness by faith?

I think the signs can include the fruit of the Spirit spoken of in Galatians 5: "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.". These are outer things that are visible that serve of evidence of faith.

The seals of a Christian's righteousness by faith include the sacraments of baptism and holy communion. In a way, Christ's resurrection and ascension are also seals: they show that the sacrifice given by Jesus did the job.

5. Abraham is the physical forefather of all who are physically Jews. Of whom is he the spiritual forefather?

This is another easy question. Abraham is the spiritual forefather of people who share his belief in God's promises.

**********************
This is 13 verses out of 25. I'll do the remaining half within this blog post, too.

When Marketing Insults

2009-09-18T06:28:00.000-07:00

Facebook makes its advertisements change depending on what is in your profile. So if you say you like Sufjan Stevens in your Music section, there will be an ad that says, "This new band sounds just like Sufjan Stevens!" even though the band sounds nothing like Sufjan Stevens.

But if you put in your facebook profile that you are single, you had better be prepared to be reminded of that fact pretty much constantly. Now, I think I've written on here before about the irony involved in an ad that had a woman with a surgically enhanced chest and only the hint of a shirt with a banner reading, "Looking for a Christian girl?", but I would like to take this opportunity to point out another ad for a facebook application called "Zoosk".

This ad involves an attractive woman who definitely is not wearing a shirt, but she is in the process of passing a basketball, so it's kinda PG-13 rated. Are marketing executives so openly disdainful of men 18-25 that they will simply combine two Things Guys Love (naked chicks and sports) and call it a day? Were the lesbians wrestling in beer unavailable? Was it Megan Fox who was going to cost too much money, or was it the Abrams Tank she was going to be driving?

And what is the female equivalent? Surely Zoosk has to market towards women- it's a dating site. Are there men without shirts reading poetry? Men without shirts in a tub filled with gold? Maybe more Vampire stuff? Sexy Vampires playing the piano?

Anyway, I will not be tricked so easily, Zoosk. I am frankly insulted by your ad and will never buy your product. Now if you'll excuse me, the Cubs are on TV and Megan Fox is singing the 7th inning stretch.

Away, then, with all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Peace, peace," and there is no peace!

2009-09-02T20:27:00.000-07:00

Blessed be all those prophets who say to the people of Christ, "Cross, cross," and there is no cross!

TO MICHAEL DRESSEL

Augustinian Prior in Neustadt, whom Luther deposed because he could not keep the peace with the brethren.

June 22, 1516.

Salvation and peace! But not such peace as is manifest to the natural man, but that which lies beneath the cross, viz. the peace which passeth all understanding. Thou art longing for peace, but in the wrong way; for thou seekest it as the world gives it, and not as Christ does. Dost thou know, dear father, that in this matter God deals in a wondrous manner with His people, having placed His peace in the midst of dispeace, nay, in the very thick of temptation and dissensions. “Rule thou in the midst of thine enemies.” Therefore it is not he whom no one disturbs who has peace — that is the world’s peace, but he who is troubled on every side, and bears all quietly and joyfully. Thou sayest with Israel, “Peace, peace, and there is no peace.” Cry rather with Christ, “Cross, cross!” And yet there is no cross. For, as soon as thou canst joyfully say, “Blessed cross, of all kinds of wood there is none like unto thee.” Then, in that moment, the cross has ceased to be a cross. See, then, how graciously the Lord is leading thee to true peace in surrounding thee with so much of the cross. For he who seeks peace will find it. And the best way to seek it is, when affliction overtakes you, to receive it with joy, as a sacred relic, and cease searching vainly for a peace which commends itself to your lower nature. For God considers any such peace far inferior to His peace, which is inseparable from the cross and the troubles of this life. Farewell, and pray for me, dear father. May the Lord reign in you.

MARTIN LUTHER, Vicar.

Wittenberg.

This should not be this hard

2009-08-30T08:02:00.000-07:00

This week, the CIA released the Inspector General Report from 2004, dealing with the enhanced interrogation techniques used on detainees. It's got the Internet tubes ablaze, I tell ya! There are very serious and strident views on both sides. Commentators the world over are asking questions, the biggest of which is:

Is torture justified if it results in the saving of lives?

This question is apparently hard. I think it's a rather slam-dunk "no"- torture is a violation of human rights, and two wrongs don't make a right. Getting a straight Biblical answer is a little difficult as the Bible doesn't explicitly deal with when it's ok to torture people. But it does say that "[the condemnation of those who say] 'Let us do evil that good may result' is deserved." Also, Christians are told to love their enemies, pray for those who persecute them, to turn the other cheek, and to treat their neighbor as themselves.

A pastor from my synod gave an answer here, and while they rightly point out that there is not (nor should there be) an Official Doctrinal Position, they also point out that if dropping the Atomic bomb was justified, torture is justified. So. There's that.

But even if we are uncertain about this question, I think there are a few relevant points that it assumes away. We can argue about what to do if we know that a terrorist has information about a bomb in New York. But what if we don't know what they know? What if we don't know that this person is a terrorist? Are there other techniques we can employ to get this information that don't involve torture? All of this is swept under the rug.

But I watched FOX News Sunday this morning, and people were very pro-torture. Juan Williams was doing very well making the case against torture: it's illegal, there are other ways to get information, the information we do get with it is unreliable because people just want the torture to stop, and it hurts America's image abroad hurting national security.

Chris Wallace would have none of it. Right before ending the show, he very snidely said, "And I suppose the fact that we haven't been attacked since September 11th is just a coincidence." I yelled loudly at my television.

Bill Kristol then points out that Abu Zubaida was interrogated using pussy techniques for a month before the men got to work, used their enhanced interrogation techniques, and got him to spill the beans. But according to this Washington Post article, Zubaida's post-torture information was not all that critical. High (always anonymous) CIA sources speak on both sides. One says the information was really important and useful, another says it wasn't.

How do we know who's telling the truth? Dick Cheney isn't an anonymous source, and he says that torture provided good intelligence that saved lives. But I don't really believe him because he has a vested interest in making the program important and effective. Also, his credibility is damaged from all of the things he said about Iraq.

Maybe there should be an investigation into this so we get some better answers. Attorney General Eric Holder has said that he's starting an inquiry. Unfortunately, it will not investigate the efficacy of torture or other techniques. It will not investigate who authorized torture to be used. But it will investigate if CIA operatives overstepped their authorization in some cases. So if you were authorized to torture someone, you're fine. If you exceeded that authorization and tortured them harder than you should have, you're in trouble.

But even this weak attempt at fact-finding and accountability is being met with hostility. Another talking head on Fox News Sunday, Mara Liasson, said that it would be better for the White House if Holder's investigation were allowed to proceed, but hoped that it would not find enough evidence to do anything. Suuuuper. Another member of the panel, Bill Sammon, thought that the investigation was damaging to the national security of the United States, and that Holder is Obama's little puppet. Maybe he's too used to the Attorney General doing whatever the President says from when George W. Bush was President.

So, in conclusion, the view that torturing people should not be done and that investigations into torture are warranted and should cover administration officials who authorized torture as well as the operatives who carried it out, makes me a crazy liberal.

I make fun of my name a lot

2009-07-15T05:16:00.000-07:00

But sometimes, it's helpful to be reminded of the person you're named for. This is why I frown on names like Brady and Apple.

David said to the Philistine, "You come against me with sword and spear and javelin, but I come against you in the name of the LORD Almighty, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied. This day the LORD will hand you over to me, and I'll strike you down and cut off your head. Today I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds of the air and the beasts of the earth, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel. All those gathered here will know that it is not by sword or spear that the LORD saves; for the battle is the LORD's, and he will give all of you into our hands."

As the Philistine moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly toward the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell facedown on the ground.

So David triumphed over the Philistine with a sling and a stone; without a sword in his hand he struck down the Philistine and killed him.

Quantum Mechanics and Miracles

2009-06-20T18:22:00.000-07:00

You know what really grinds my gears? When people misuse quantum mechanics and mistakenly apply it to explain macroscopic phenomena and miracles.

The story goes a little something like this: the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle states that the momentum and position of a particle cannot both be known at the same time with infinite levels of precision. There is a little fuzziness- electrons are better described as waves than as balls. We can draw a cloud where we are sure the electron spends 95 or 99 or 99.9 percent of its time, but you can never draw a cloud big enough to capture 100 percent of the electron. Therefore, there is a chance no matter how remote that every electron and particle in your body will jump three feet to the right. Or you could punch a wall and your hand would go straight through it as the gypsum board particles hit the cosmic lottery and jump out of the way.

This is where miracles come in.

Some people posit that miracles operate under the guidance of quantum mechanics- God plays slots with the Universe and uses his omnipotence to make sure he gets three cherries whenever he wants. I do not think this is a very good understanding of God or quantum mechanics. God does not play dice with the Universe!

For evidence of this, I suppose I could just cite a few miracles from the Bible. Pay attention to how and why Jesus performs the miracles, and what they say about him.

Then [Jesus] got into the boat and his disciples followed him. Without warning, a furious storm came up on the lake, so that the waves swept over the boat. But Jesus was sleeping. The disciples went and woke him, saying, "Lord, save us! We're going to drown!"

He replied, "You of little faith, why are you so afraid?" Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm.

The men were amazed and asked, "What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!"

How does Jesus accomplish this miracle? He 'rebukes the winds and the waves' and they 'obey him'. He could just as easily have told his disciples to turn around and close their eyes, said nothing, and when they turned back have everything be calm.

The image that we are given instead is the relationship between a Creator and his Creation: because Jesus is the Son of God and was the Word at the time the Universe was made, he can therefore have mastery over his creation and suspend any rule that he created in the first place. This is kind of like how an author who writes himself into a book has mastery over what happens to his character in that book.

Here's a second example from earlier in the same chapter of Matthew:

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help. "Lord," he said, "my servant lies at home paralyzed and in terrible suffering."

Jesus said to him, "I will go and heal him."

The centurion replied, "Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, 'Go,' and he goes; and that one, 'Come,' and he comes. I say to my servant, 'Do this,' and he does it."

When Jesus heard this, he was astonished and said to those following him, "I tell you the truth, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith. I say to you that many will come from the east and the west, and will take their places at the feast with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the subjects of the kingdom will be thrown outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

Then Jesus said to the centurion, "Go! It will be done just as you believed it would." And his servant was healed at that very hour.

Again, Jesus is able to perform this miracle because he has divine authority, like how the centurion has authority over his troops.

Why is this an issue at all?

I think it is important to think about whether Jesus performed these miracles by playing by the rules of physics and rigging the deck or if he got rid of the rules completely.

First of all, the idea that even Jesus and God have to play by the rules of physics sounds somewhat like Deism to me. Deism says that God is a Divine Watchmaker who planned the course of world history by setting the speed of light, Planck's Constant, and Boltzmann's Constant at the beginning of time and hasn't intervened since. Since it is precisely this intervention that is told in the Old and New Testaments, I don't like Deism.

Second, it puts the Creator at the mercy of his own Creation, which is a Very Bad Thing. Some people (WHO SHALL REMAIN NAMELESS) do not believe in God because they think that events described in the Bible are physically impossible. Even though the events ARE, in fact, physically impossible, that does not mean that God cannot do them if God transcends physics.

Lastly, having this understanding of miracles develops our faith in the same way that exercise develops muscles. Believing that God is able to do things that physics says cannot be done takes a lot of faith. Believing that God is able to do things that physics says are astronomically unlikely takes less faith. And the entire point is that we are supposed to have faith in that greatest of miracles: the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

Will there be Quantum Mechanics in Heaven?

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."

He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!"

Romans 3

2009-06-06T07:47:00.000-07:00

So I got a book from the church library on Romans, and I think it will help my study. It's written to help a group Bible study leader, so its translation to blog form will be a little tricky, as there is a lot less interaction and group discussion. Just reading about scripture and writing somewhat coherent thoughts about it helps me understand it better, but comments from Andy or Chrissy or Ed or Sarah or anyone help too.

What advantage, then, is there in being a Jew, or what value is there in circumcision? Much in every way! First of all, they have been entrusted with the very words of God.

What if some did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness? Not at all! Let God be true, and every man a liar. As it is written:
"So that you may be proved right when you speak
and prevail when you judge."

But if our unrighteousness brings out God's righteousness more clearly, what shall we say? That God is unjust in bringing his wrath on us? (I am using a human argument.) Certainly not! If that were so, how could God judge the world? Someone might argue, "If my falsehood enhances God's truthfulness and so increases his glory, why am I still condemned as a sinner?" Why not say—as we are being slanderously reported as saying and as some claim that we say—"Let us do evil that good may result"? Their condemnation is deserved.

The Jews Paul is writing to may have been upset with the earlier part of his letter. If they do not follow the Law, they are just as bad as the gentiles who do not follow the Law, and they are worse than gentiles that do follow it. So what good does it do to be a Jew? Paul has a couple responses, more of which will come up in chapter 9, but in his first response here he says that the Jews "have been entrusted with the very words of God."

1. In what ways is it an advantage to know God's revelation of Himself, His promises, His deeds, and His guidance for living?

I can think of three responses to this question:

A. God's revelation is unchanging and true. The words of the Bible don't change from country to country or from time to time depending on people's whims, the spirit of the age, or recent advances in scholarship. This means that we don't have to rely on ourselves for religious guidance- God has done it for us. This is a firmer foundation than not having God's revelation.

B. A knowledge of God's past promises and His deeds gives us comfort that He will keep His promises about our salvation, too. He delivered Daniel from the lion's den, Jonah from the belly of the whale, and the Hebrew children from the fiery furnace, so why not every man?

C. As creatures created by God, he knows us better than we may know ourselves about what will make us happy and healthy. Say, for example, that you did not have the Law and that your conscience had been hardened and dulled so that you did not believe that adultery was a sin. You would still suffer the bad symptoms (both spiritual and worldly) without being sure of the cause.

2. What responsibilities go along with being entrusted with God's words?

We must first work to understand them and take care of them. They should also be preached to everyone. Lastly, they should not be misused, misquoted, or misapplied, or else a non-believer would have reason to doubt God.

Also, knowledge of the Law implies that you accept to be judged on your adherence to that Law.

3. What implications does this have for Christians, who have even more of God's words than the Jews had?

We're supposed to be even more diligent and careful with what we've been entrusted. We have been given "treasures in jars of clay", as Paul wrote to the Corinthians.

Paul also wants to address a second objection. If God looks more righteous in comparison to sinful human beings, wouldn't sinning in a way bring glory to God? For the moment, Paul just brushes this aside as absurd and will deal more with the issue later.

Moving on.

What shall we conclude then? Are we any better? Not at all! We have already made the charge that Jews and Gentiles alike are all under sin. As it is written:
"There is no one righteous, not even one;
there is no one who understands,
no one who seeks God.
All have turned away,
they have together become worthless;
there is no one who does good,
not even one."
"Their throats are open graves;
their tongues practice deceit."
"The poison of vipers is on their lips."
"Their mouths are full of cursing and bitterness."
"Their feet are swift to shed blood;
ruin and misery mark their ways,
and the way of peace they do not know."
"There is no fear of God before their eyes."

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be silenced and the whole world held accountable to God. Therefore no one will be declared righteous in his sight by observing the law; rather, through the law we become conscious of sin.

This is the big conclusion that Paul has been building towards so far: everyone is guilty of breaking the Law, so they cannot be justified before God by using it. The indented verses above are quotes from various sections of the Old Testament and are included to prove to Jews that they are also condemned and that this message is nothing new.

I think that this message is not communicated strongly today. Even Christians believe that they are by nature sinful. In the infamous movie featuring the Sinners in the Pit, non-believing friends of mine came away believing that Christians had never been in the Pit.

For the students of philosophy and history, I blame this on Humanism. The belief that people, when you get right down to it, are innately good, decent, and honest, is neither psychologically true nor Biblical. However, it is a comforting and compelling belief. It is also popular. The antidote is probably examination of oneself and society at large according to the Ten Commandments, but this is something of a Catch-22: if people will not accept the moral authority of the Ten Commandments, then it is hard to convince them that they have sinned against them. Put another way, it is hard to tell a kleptomaniac that he is a criminal if theft is not a crime.

4. Jews have at least one advantage over Gentiles: they have been entrusted with God's words. However, in the final analysis, why are Jews and Gentiles essentially equal?

Jews and Gentiles are essentially equal because they both have sinned and are in need of God's grace.

5. What are some purposes of God's Law (3:19-20)?

Not only does the Law tell us how we should live in accordance with God's Will, but it also points out our sin and need for a savior when we fail to follow it. Students who still have their catechisms might remember the Law serving as Curb, Mirror, and Guide. That is, it curbs destructive behaviors and attitudes, lets us see our sins, and gives us positive advice in how we should live.

To quote the Book of Concord:

1] Since the Law of God is useful, 1. not only to the end that external discipline and decency are maintained by it against wild, disobedient men; 2. likewise, that through it men are brought to a knowledge of their sins; 3. but also that, when they have been born anew by the Spirit of God, converted to the Lord, and thus the veil of Moses has been lifted from them, they live and walk in the law[.]

6. Sketch an outline of 1:18-3:20 by giving titles to the main section and the subsections. Try to follow Paul's logic.

My Bible has sections of its own that I find useful. I guess the NIV did this?

1:18-3:20: The Unrighteousness of All Mankind
1:18-32: God's Wrath Against Mankind- Gentiles willfully disobeyed God and this made God mad.
2:1-16: God's Righteous Judgment- He was right to be mad and will judge the righteous and unrighteous.
2:17-29: The Jews and the Law- The Jews have the Law and claim to be righteous because of it, but this isn't true because they don't practice what they preach.
3:1-8: God's Faithfulness- God keeps his promises even if people who have the Law don't practice what they preach.
3:9-20: No One Is Righteous- Gentiles and Jews have all broken God's Law.

My Bible also has this outline:
1:18-3:20: The Unrighteousness of All Mankind
1:18-32: Gentiles
2:1-3:8: Jews
3:9-20: All People

Last section (Righteousness Through Faith):

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe. There is no difference, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. God presented him as a sacrifice of atonement, through faith in his blood. He did this to demonstrate his justice, because in his forbearance he had left the sins committed beforehand unpunished— he did it to demonstrate his justice at the present time, so as to be just and the one who justifies those who have faith in Jesus.

Where, then, is boasting? It is excluded. On what principle? On that of observing the law? No, but on that of faith. For we maintain that a man is justified by faith apart from observing the law. Is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles too? Yes, of Gentiles too, since there is only one God, who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through that same faith. Do we, then, nullify the law by this faith? Not at all! Rather, we uphold the law.

There are a few competing ideas that need to be resolved: if God is all-loving and gracious, he will keep his promise made at The Fall and somehow save people from their sins. Also, he is a just God who cannot stand to be in the presence of sin and will reward sin with the punishment it deserves. How does God get past this paradox or dilemma?

Paul says that he gets past it by having Jesus pay the punishment for our sins on the cross, and by faith imputing his righteousness to us. He is gracious and loving- people who put their faith in Jesus are saved. He is just- those sins have been paid for.

Paul uses a few terms that have been stripped of their meaning to me due to overuse, so I'd like to look at them carefully again. First, is 'justification'. Again, using the vocabulary of the courtroom, to justify someone is to declare them (in the positive sense) 'righteous' and (in the negative sense) 'not guilty'. We are justified before the Judge (God) through Christ's redemption, which is given to us as a free gift that we call grace.

Redemption also needs to be defined, here. We sometimes think of redemption as doing a good action to offset a bad one ("Just when I think you couldn't possibly be any dumber, you go and do something like this... and TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!"). But here the word is used in a different sense: it is a release by payment of a ransom. You could redeem a criminal or a slave by paying a price.

God could have been loving and gracious by simply suspending the rules, but that would not have been just. This is what Paul means when he says that 'we uphold the law'- God is not suspending the rules.

7. In your own words, explain how Jesus has enabled us to become righteous if we put our faith in Him.

Even though we have sinned against God, we are declared not guilty of those sins, because Christ led a righteous life and died an innocent death. "But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed."

But why doesn't God just give big kudos to Jesus and not impute it to us? I can't force Jesus to help me. Instead, he gives those kudos that God gave him to me. He did that not to earn my loyalty or love or devotion, but because he's a really nice guy who loves me unconditionally.

8. Why is the phrase 'freely by his grace' important?

It is important because it shows that we don't buy our justification through our actions. Our salvation is dependent upon the love and grace of God, rather than ourselves. This is more reassuring and comforting than depending even in part on our own righteous deeds: our deeds may sometimes fail, but God never will.

9. Why does God's way of righteousness make it impossible for anyone to boast about himself?

If God's way of righteousness is given freely, then no one can boast and say they deserve it more than another person in the same way that I can't claim I deserve more Christmas presents: they are gifts. Jews and gentiles are justified in the same way apart from the law given to Jews only, so Jews can't boast before gentiles.

Imagine that I told two people named Andy and Jordan that I would buy them ice cream depending on how well they played Monopoly. However, I gave Jordan $6000 and Andy only $500. I stop the game later and buy them both ice cream because they played the game 'well'- they were courteous to one another, they did not cheat, they rolled the dice and moved the game pieces correctly, etc., etc. It would do Jordan no good to claim that he deserved more ice cream for ending up with more money- I wasn't grading on that criteria, anyway.

Maybe that's a bad analogy in some ways, but it gets the point across.

Hump Day

2009-06-03T05:37:00.000-07:00

Recently, the Badger Herald e-mailed me (and 30,000 of my closest friends) that the Herald Sex Columnist job was available for next year.

The idea of a Confessional Lutheran Sex Columnist was just inherently funny to me, so I wrote a submission, reproduced with critical feedback below. It managed to be geeky, prudish, slightly passive-aggressive, and clumsily written. Just like the story of my life! (Ba-dum ching!)

Dear Badger Herald,

I was originally going to title this e-mail, "Sex Opening", or "Sex Position", but both of those sounded too taboo. Here is my submission:

I love my ex. We can't ever seem to really break up. The sex is so great! We fight, but then makeup.... I can't seem to leave him. What should I do?

—Distressed and Horny

Dear DAH,

When you think of your ex-boyfriend, what do you think about? Do you think of the stupid things, the mood rings, the bracelets and the beads? Do you think of how he is an emotional freezer, a soulless robotic automaton devoid of genuine human love? Or do you think of the sex?

You are staying together, not because he challenges you, or because you intimately understand each other, or any of those vague, touchy-feely bullshit reasons. You are staying together because the sex is great. And that makes you a lizard-brained sheep. Or a sheep-brained lizard. Your entire relationship with another human being is being sustained by the sex, which is biochemically no different from eating large quantities of chocolate.

Here is a little thought experiment. Imagine that there was an advance in medicine. You could have an electrode implanted in your head connected to a button that would release endorphins in the pleasure centers of your brain. You wouldn't have to work hard to achieve your goals, or find deep satisfaction in the sublime grace of music, or anything mundane like that. Would such an operation be worth it? Would the pleasure you received be real? Would it be good for you?

I would answer that the operation would not be worth it. Love is more than a feeling, and pleasure more than the release of Dopamine. Love should inspire you to help, protect, and be willing to sacrifice yourself for your partner, not just smile dumbly. Unearned pleasure is ultimately unsatisfying; has The Matrix taught us nothing?

In the same way, sex is more than a physical act and brain chemicals. It brings couples together emotionally. It leads to the creation of another human life. It is a way for two people to become one flesh. If you are only on board for the physical pleasure side of things, stop: you're doing it wrong.

Sex is a great and wonderful gift. But its place is within the stabilizing sphere of marriage, where its emotional, spiritual, and biological aspects can best be appreciated.

This is the response of Alexander Garens, web associate of the Badger Herald, out-going sex columnist, and recent graduate in legal studies, Spanish, and Japanese:

I was slightly on board until the "no sex til marriage" mantra. I agree intercourse should generally be accompanied by sincere feelings, but reserved absolutely and exclusively for marriages? Don't be silly. You yourself referenced our lizard-brains-- that's exactly what our sex drive dilutes down to. This person should not stay with their ex when the only connection is the great sex, he/she should go find someone he/she feels passionately for AND can have great, intimate fun with, not wait til there's a wedding band on their finger.

So...embrace your lizard-brain? Anyway, this was a lot of fun, and I encourage everyone to write in with even more advice.

Romans 2

2009-05-23T11:33:00.000-07:00

On to Romans 2. Paul's purpose of 'convicting the world' continues from chapter 1.

God's Righteous Judgment
You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will give to each person according to what he has done." To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile; but glory, honor and peace for everyone who does good: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For God does not show favoritism.

All who sin apart from the law will also perish apart from the law, and all who sin under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not those who hear the law who are righteous in God's sight, but it is those who obey the law who will be declared righteous. (Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.) This will take place on the day when God will judge men's secrets through Jesus Christ, as my gospel declares.

As I'm reading this epistle, I'm reminded of how applicable it is to present-day spiritual problems. People often make the argument that because they were written 2000 years ago, these letters by Paul do not carry much weight: Paul could not have foreseen the invention of the steam engine, let alone the marvelous advancements made in Philosophy by Arthur Schopenhauer (squeeeee!).

However, there are two critiques made in this part of the letter that resonate very well today. The first is the over-arching theme of condemnation. Speaking through Paul, God reminds us that we are under his righteous judgment. I think a present failing of many people (myself included) is that we do not think of actions as being righteous or unrighteous. They may be wise or foolish. They may harm others or oneself. They may add to the total utility of society. The only time an action is wrong is when it infringes on the rights of another.

A second critique comes as a result of the first: recognizing the sinfulness of the world involves recognizing the sinfulness of oneself. You cannot condemn or judge other people without condemning yourself. Curiously, this passage was quoted to me as evidence in favor of condoning sin. However, I think the problem that Paul is addressing is an inconsistent or hypocritical application of God's Law, rather than just the application itself.

There is a similar account in Matthew 7, in Jesus' Sermon on the Mount.

"Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

"Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother's eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye,' when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.

Again, it is the hypocritical application that is being attacked here.

Why is this relevant? A poll I read showed that a lot of young people felt that the church was hypocritical in its moral teachings, and that this hurt Christian credibility. How can you take Ted Haggard seriously when he engages in homosexual affairs? How can you believe what Jim Bakker says after all of the accounting scandals?

Aside from those two contemporary issues (a hard-hearted society and a hypocritical church), this section goes on to talk about the law written on men's hearts, as well as good works.

How about the law written on men's hearts? Does such a thing exist? Is there such a thing as a conscience? That it exists is a fairly unarguable fact: you know as well as I do that you feel bad when you do something bad. As Abraham Lincoln is quoted to have said, "When I do good, I feel good, and when I do bad, I feel bad. That is my religion."

How, then, do we account for differences in moralities and consciences between groups throughout history? And isn't it a social construct anyway? If it is so malleable, how can God justly judge us? One answer presented here is that it's not God's fault if men dull their own consciences or those of the people around them. Besides which, God's giving of the Law serves as a perfect, codified version with which we are to check our consciences.

As far as righteous works are concerned, I'll quote Luther in a second, but it dovetails into the next few verses.

The Jews and the Law

Now you, if you call yourself a Jew; if you rely on the law and brag about your relationship to God; if you know his will and approve of what is superior because you are instructed by the law; if you are convinced that you are a guide for the blind, a light for those who are in the dark, an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of infants, because you have in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— you, then, who teach others, do you not teach yourself? You who preach against stealing, do you steal? You who say that people should not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? You who brag about the law, do you dishonor God by breaking the law? As it is written: "God's name is blasphemed among the Gentiles because of you."

Circumcision has value if you observe the law, but if you break the law, you have become as though you had not been circumcised. If those who are not circumcised keep the law's requirements, will they not be regarded as though they were circumcised? The one who is not circumcised physically and yet obeys the law will condemn you who, even though you have the written code and circumcision, are a lawbreaker.

A man is not a Jew if he is only one outwardly, nor is circumcision merely outward and physical. No, a man is a Jew if he is one inwardly; and circumcision is circumcision of the heart, by the Spirit, not by the written code. Such a man's praise is not from men, but from God.

This gives me opportunity to talk about another layer in the topic of righteousness and condemnation: inner and outer action. People can see outer actions, be they righteous or wicked, but is impossible for us to see inner actions. People could even be performing an outwardly righteous action (say, giving to the poor) for an inwardly unrighteous reason (say, for the fame and social status). The hypocrisy here is condemning outer actions and not condemning inner ones.

Here's Luther on the subject:

You must not understand the word law here in human fashion, i.e., a regulation about what sort of works must be done or must not be done. That's the way it is with human laws: you satisfy the demands of the law with works, whether your heart is in it or not. God judges what is in the depths of the heart. Therefore his law also makes demands on the depths of the heart and doesn't let the heart rest content in works; rather it punishes as hypocrisy and lies all works done apart from the depths of the heart. All human beings are called liars (Psalm 116), since none of them keeps or can keep God's law from the depths of the heart. Everyone finds inside himself an aversion to good and a craving for evil. Where there is no free desire for good, there the heart has not set itself on God's law. There also sin is surely to be found and the deserved wrath of God, whether a lot of good works and an honorable life appear outwardly or not.

Therefore in chapter 2, St. Paul adds that the Jews are all sinners and says that only the doers of the law are justified in the sight of God. What he is saying is that no one is a doer of the law by works. On the contrary, he says to them, "You teach that one should not commit adultery, and you commit adultery. You judge another in a certain matter and condemn yourselves in that same matter, because you do the very same thing that you judged in another." It is as if he were saying, "Outwardly you live quite properly in the works of the law and judge those who do not live the same way; you know how to teach everybody. You see the speck in another's eye but do not notice the beam in your own."

Outwardly you keep the law with works out of fear of punishment or love of gain. Likewise you do everything without free desire and love of the law; you act out of aversion and force. You'd rather act otherwise if the law didn't exist. It follows, then, that you, in the depths of your heart, are an enemy of the law. What do you mean, therefore, by teaching another not to steal, when you, in the depths of your heart, are a thief and would be one outwardly too, if you dared. (Of course, outward work doesn't last long with such hypocrites.) So then, you teach others but not yourself; you don't even know what you are teaching. You've never understood the law rightly. Furthermore, the law increases sin, as St. Paul says in chapter 5. That is because a person becomes more and more an enemy of the law the more it demands of him what he can't possibly do.

This section also talks about circumcision being "more than merely outward and physical." Circumcision marked the Covenant between God and Abraham. There is therefore a relation with the New Covenant that Jesus gives in the Lord's Supper. These sacraments are not just symbols or outer remembrances or ceremonies. There are important things going on. This is why Paul and many Christians get a little upset with open, anything-goes communion.

More Signs of the Apocalypse

2009-05-19T07:49:00.000-07:00

Last night was Man VS. Monkey Night on Deal or No Deal.

Great Scenes in Movie History

2009-04-24T09:12:00.000-07:00

1. Opening Scene to Star Wars: A New Hope.

This film should be studied for years to understand how all movies should start. Those little blue letters about a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away...and then BOOOOOOM! John Williams hits you with that horn section, and the letters scroll up, and then you see that huuuuuge star destroyer, cut to where there's warning klaxons going on all over, the robots are running one way, the ship's crew are running the other, and then everyone gets in place.

It's quiet. A few ominous sounds of metal-on-metal, and then BLAMO again, as the stormtroopers blow up the door and start blasting everybody. And then, you guys, in the middle of this white-ish door steps through Darth f--king Vader.

2. The Scene In That One Church from Saving Private Ryan

Medic Wade: Actually, the trick to falling asleep is trying to stay awake.
Mellish: How is that, Wade?
Medic Wade: Well, when my mother was an intern, she used to work late through the night... sleep through the day. So the only time we'd ever get to talk about anything is when she'd get home. So what I... I used to do, I used to lie in my bed and try to stay awake as long as I could, but it never worked 'cause... 'cause the harder I'd try, the faster I'd fall asleep.
Private Reiben: Yeah well, that wouldn't have mattered none in my house. My ma, she would've come home, shook me awake, chatted me up 'til dawn. I swear that woman was never too tired to talk.
Mellish: That was probably the only time she could get a word in.
Medic Wade: Only thing is, sometimes she'd come home early, and I'd pretend to be asleep.
Mellish: Who, your mom?
Medic Wade: Yeah. She'd stand in the doorway looking at me... and I'd just keep my eyes shut. And I knew she just wanted to find out about my day - that she came home early... just to talk to me. And I still wouldn't move... I'd still pretend to just be asleep. I don't know why I did that.

Gets me every time.

3. Closing Scene to Field of Dreams.

Where he asks his dead dad to go play catch? Oh man, you'd have to be some sort of cold unfeeling robot (or a girl) to not cry at that. I don't know if women will understand that movie at all- probably not. It's probably like Brian's Song in its ability to make men cry, while women don't get it. So remember, sports-obsessed culture, if you want to tug on the heartstrings, make a movie about sports. Or war. Or wargames. I cry every time I play tic-tac-toe, now. Only Jordan will get that joke.

4. The scene in The Jerk where Navin gets randomly shot at.

I laugh throughout this movie, but never as hard as when Navin gets overenthusiastic about the Phone Book: "The new phone book's here! The new phone book's here! Things are going to start happening to me, now!" Cut to scene of maniacal killer selecting his victim at random from the phone book: "Navin R. Johnson, random sonofabitch milkface bastard."

And then the cans. "He hates these cans! STAY AWAY FROM THE CANS!!!" Steve Martin's horror when he finds that he's accidentally taken refuge behind a Coca-Cola machine is priceless.

5. Rain Scene from The Notebook.

It's so over the top that I can't help secretly liking it. "I wrote you every day for a year. It wasn't over. It's still not over." Ker-smooooooooooooooooch.

That's it. Those are the five best, ever. Everybody else go home. Where are you going to go from there? Forget about it.

Romans 1

2009-03-19T08:04:00.000-07:00

Now with blockquotes!

Paul, a servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle and set apart for the gospel of God— the gospel he promised beforehand through his prophets in the Holy Scriptures regarding his Son, who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead: Jesus Christ our Lord. Through him and for his name's sake, we received grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith. And you also are among those who are called to belong to Jesus Christ.

To all in Rome who are loved by God and called to be saints:
Grace and peace to you from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.

This is a notable way to start out a letter to Christians in Rome. I can only assume that some would be Jewish converts, but that a larger share would be Gentiles. Would the Gentiles much care if Jesus had been promised and prophesied about many years before? Would they understand what it means that Jesus is related to David?

There is a common motif found throughout the New Testament that Paul also uses here. Elsewhere, when people talk about the flesh or the spirit, these are placeholders for the deprived state of human nature before God's grace, compared to the soul that has been renewed. Remember when Jesus is about to be betrayed, his disciples fall asleep when they should be praying, and Jesus says, "The spirit is willing, but the body is weak."

So what does Paul mean when he says that "who as to his human nature was a descendant of David, and who through the Spirit of holiness was declared with power to be the Son of God by his resurrection from the dead"? The 'human nature' that Christ has that Paul is talking about is part of Christ's Humiliation: that period of time that Jesus gave up his full powers as God and became a man that ate, slept, cried, walked, drank, and talked.

The Resurrection, then, is part of his Glorification- those periods when Jesus is revealed to be the Deity he is. The NIV translates the word 'Spirit' in this passage with a capital 'S', that is, the Holy Spirit. This might be taken to mean that the Holy Spirit declared Jesus to be holy, or something. It's confusing. But it doesn't really show that Flesh VS Spirit motif very well. A WELS seminarian, who is much better at this stuff than I am, writes an alternative translation:

"He was by the resurrection from the dead designated as the Son of God in power, in full accord with his spiritual mode of existence, an existence characterized by holiness.”

Paul's Longing to Visit Rome

First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you, because your faith is being reported all over the world. God, whom I serve with my whole heart in preaching the gospel of his Son, is my witness how constantly I remember you in my prayers at all times; and I pray that now at last by God's will the way may be opened for me to come to you.

I long to see you so that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong— that is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other's faith. I do not want you to be unaware, brothers, that I planned many times to come to you (but have been prevented from doing so until now) in order that I might have a harvest among you, just as I have had among the other Gentiles.

I am obligated both to Greeks and non-Greeks, both to the wise and the foolish. That is why I am so eager to preach the gospel also to you who are at Rome.

I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes: first for the Jew, then for the Gentile. For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: "The righteous will live by faith."

This is an excellent statement of the gospel's purpose. God is using it in order to save everyone who believes. Whenever people complain that God doesn't do anything, you can show this passage. God is using the gospel as his tool to redeem mankind. Compare popular conceptions of Christianity to this. Jesus may well be nice and good and want us to treat other people with kindness and respect, but the entire point behind this story is salvation, not behavior modification.

Lastly in this section, Paul begins one of the biggest themes of his epistle: righteousness. Don't make the mistake I sometimes make after watching too much Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and think of righteousness as an all-encompassing generally positive modifier. It has a clear meaning: doing the right things. Following God's Will perfectly.

The Bible often uses the illustration of a courtroom, with God as the Judge. People come before him, and are accused of wrongdoing (The Accuser is a popular euphemism for Satan). If they are righteous, they don't have anything to be worried about. But if they are unrighteous (hint: this covers a LOT of people), they are in trouble. Paul is saying that there is some way to be made righteous before God, even if you are unrighteous.

God's Wrath Against Mankind
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of men who suppress the truth by their wickedness, since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse.

For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles.

Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another. They exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.

Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural relations for unnatural ones. In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed indecent acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their perversion.

Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them.

The first part of this section is cool because it deals with a variety of issues I've written about before: evolution, Creation, environmentalism, and the culpability of mankind.

Agnostics I've talked to bring up this point a lot: you are a Christian because your parents are Christian and that is what you have been taught. How is it fair for God to deny salvation to people who, through no fault of their own do not have access to Christian parents or the Bible or seminaries or missionaries?

Paul answers here that no one should be able to make that claim. The evidence of God's Creation is so powerful and manifest that "men are without excuse". All societies at one time had an understanding of God. Some threw that understanding away, exchanging an inconvenient truth for a lie.

Evolution and other sciences like astrophysics directly combat this point. The evidence of God's Creation is not convincing at all. We've looked and looked and looked, and our best answer is NOT that God made the universe, but that we exist as a cosmic fluke.

Environmentalism has a role to play in this, too. In this section, Paul says that the natural world testifies to the attributes of God. If we treat the natural world better, those attributes can better be seen. The restoration of the natural world would also be a great way to communicate the restoration of our place as children of God.

Now on to the homosexual stuff. You simply cannot maintain biblical integrity and claim that homosexuality is not a sin: it's condemned strongly here, elsewhere in the New Testament, as well as the Old Testament. Some people will actually try to do this, and tie themselves up in knots. If you accept only certain parts of the Bible, this is not a big problem: St. Paul was correct in his teachings of atonement, sanctification, and faith alone, but not this part about homosexuality.

I do not know why some American church bodies have reversed course on this issue. Which is more probable: the teachings of the church have been incorrect for thousands of years, or that modern churches are falsely changing doctrine due to social pressure? This may be one of the only times in recorded church history when churches have openly sanctioned activities that are condemned by scripture. Paul might have written today, "Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

Barack Obama: Socialist?

2009-03-17T14:28:00.000-07:00

There can be only one answer when Barack Obama funds million-dollar bonuses at AIG with taxpayer money and gives $25 billion to the Big Three (on the condition that they lower their labor costs to be more in line with other companies).

Barack Obama is afraid of being called a Socialist, so he is doing the most non-Socialist policies possible.

On Green Lantern

2009-02-27T15:03:00.001-08:00

So one of my favorite comic book heroes growing up was Green Lantern. For those of you who are in denial about their past, Green Lantern used the green power of a green ring he got from the good people of Oa. Or possibly Ao. He had two flaws:

1. His green powers wouldn't work against the color yellow. So he'd, like, make a green gun and shoot it at you, and if you were wearing a yellow hat, you'd be ok.

2. He would sometimes run out of power in his ring, and have to refill it using, get this, a Green Lantern. I guess sometimes even that green lantern would get low, so he'd have to go back to Oa every now and then.

So that was fun. Until they started messing around with the story. All of a sudden, they came out with new green rings that did work against the color yellow. But wait! Then they didn't work against yellow, once again. But wait! There wasn't a flaw in the rings all along! It was simply the fear and belief in the powerlessness against the color yellow that created a self-fulfilling prophecy that made them powerless against the color yellow.

Also, eventually, the planet of Oa was destroyed. You would think that this would end the entire sequence. Instead, the new (and last) Green Lantern has a ring of unlimited green power. That has no weaknesses.

Then he got a sidekick, Green Arrow. Green Arrow didn't have any superpowers or rings of unlimited power, but he did have arrows. Special arrows that would freeze people or stun them or release noxious gas or explode. Except he had a moral thing against killing people.

So, unlimited power that can be unleashed with a thought. And a sidekick who doesn't kill people and has no superpowers.

On Flying Carpets

2009-02-26T13:30:00.000-08:00

Let's say that your magic carpet could, in fact, fly. It is still a terrible idea! There is nothing to hold on to, there is no protection from the elements, including the winds at high elevations, and it is not pressurized.

On Love

2009-02-14T12:45:00.000-08:00

In light of today being Valentine's Day, as well as hearing a sermon about love two weeks ago, I've decided to do a blog post On Love.

This is a terrible idea! Now with 30% more cynicism!

Thesis 1: Love is nebulous, and this is a bad thing. Love is so broad a topic and so broadly defined, that eventually it becomes a completely meaningless and useless construction. This is a Very Bad Thing, because verbal communication should convey meaning. Imagine the following scenario:

Ben Affleck: I have to go blow up an asteroid to save the Earth!
Liv Tyler: But I love you!
Ben Affleck: What does that mean?
Liv Tyler: It means that you're the sunshine of my life.
Ben Affleck: In this metaphor, am I the sunshine because I provide you with sustenance in the form of animal crackers?
Liv Tyler: Uh...
Ben Affleck: Perhaps it is because I provide you with 'light' so that you can see what you're doing. You get confused about something, and through my council and digging-ability, I help you understand it.
Liv Tyler: Kind of.
Ben Affleck: Is it because my regular and periodic appearance makes you feel secure?
Liv Tyler: Kind of. My love for you is like a truck, Berserker!
Ben Affleck: This broad definition of love is confusing me. I can't concentrate on blowing up this asteroid.

KA-BOOOOOOOM!

Other Bad Love Definitions Either Made Up Or Remembered By Me:

Love is that magical jelly-bean inside your heart that grows into a rainbow bridge when you water it with kitten smiles.*

Love is never having to say you're sorry.

Other Bad Love Definitions Found On Urban Dictionary:

For others, love is the ever-present peace, the constant comfort and the assuring knowledge that the one you love is there.

Imagine, an ever-present peace that only appears when someone you love is around!

That feeling you get when he holds your hand hugs you, simply looks at you. Your stomach flip flops and you can't think straight but can think just how amazing he is. You get in so deep you forget everything and spend hours with him without even realizing its been hours. THE MOST AMAZING FEELING IN THE WORLD!!!!!

I cannot think coherently, but I do think that you are amazing! Also, if you would like to not think straight and forget hours of your life, you could just drink antifreeze.

love is undefined, it has no right and wrong meanings, it's just there for you to overcome, loook back on, and fall deeper into, it's something that cannot be controlled.

This is a website whose express purpose is to define things. Also, I believe that love is the capital of Maryland. I hope I don't fall deeper into the capital of Maryland! It cannot be controlled!

So, let's talk about Romeo and Juliet.

OK, so Romeo and Juliet is the Greatest Love Story in the History of the World, right?

No. No, it is not. That is something that your 9th grade English teacher told you so that you would actually read the book. By the end of the play, Romeo and Juliet are both dead, as are Mercutio and Tybalt. This play is a tragedy, and uses love as an instrument to get to its tragic end. That doesn't reflect very well on love, does it?

Moreover, the message of the play itself is that the love between Romeo and Juliet is paper-thin. Romeo is very impulsive: his decision to crash the party, run away and get married, kill Tybalt, and kill himself are all spur of the moment decisions. He was totes in Luv with Rosaline not a week before. This is not an argument in favor of "love at first sight": it's an argument that Romeo is making a huge mistake.

Towards a Better Definition

I'm much better at being snarky and criticizing the efforts of others with enormous levels of bile, jealousy, and cynicism than making a positive contribution of my own. Blame Connor Oberst.

I'm of half a mind to just split love up into three things like the Greeks did. So love between friends is called 'Philia', and has different characteristics than love between romantic couples called 'Eros', which has different characteristics from 'Agape' love between God and Humanity.

But we speak American, so we're stuck with one word.

But here goes nothing: Love is the irrational motivation to unconditionally help meet the physical, emotional, or spiritual needs of a person or group.

1. Irrational. It is irrational to meet the needs of other people at the expense of your own well-being. Ask Ayn Rand about this. However, self-sacrifice is a big part of love. Ask a parent if they would be willing to die for their children. Many would say yes. And lest we think that this is motivated by a rational desire to ensure the survival of the species, I think it is safe to say that many children would be willing to die for their parents. Many husbands would be willing to die for their wives. Many wives would be willing to die for their husbands. There is no rational reason for this.

2. Motivation. I resisted the urge to refer to love as an emotion, because you can feel different emotions while experiencing love. For example, you might feel very happy when someone you love is around. You might feel sad when they leave. You might feel disgusted when trying to help someone. You might feel angry.

The idea of motivation also implies taking action. A love that doesn't cause you to do anything isn't very strong.

3. Unconditional. I know, I know- my history of Bible studies on Sunday mornings is showing. I'm trying very hard to be secular in this post, as it seems like nearly all my blog posts devolve into Jesus-tinted rants. But I think it's very helpful to say, "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

This death was unconditional: Jesus didn't die on Good Friday, provided that we pay him fifty bucks on Easter Sunday.

Try a few secular examples. When you call a friend on their birthday, is this so that you will get a call from them on your birthday? Do you pick up someone's dropped groceries so that people will think that you're a good person? Do you get a person flowers because if you don't, they will become angry?

4. Meeting people's needs. This is an imprecise and clunky part of the definition. Again, I would like to convey the idea that love involves action. But 'meeting needs'? Getting a list of things that people need would be hard and controversial. Also, it's difficult to express 'tough love' in this framework. Sometimes it can be a very loving thing to do to tell someone how much their preoccupation with getting ahead in their career is damaging their health. Or whatever.

So that's it. Happy Valentine's Day!

*Note: "Love is that magical jelly-bean inside your heart that grows into a rainbow bridge when you water it with kitten smiles." is the single best sentence I have ever constructed.

Environmentalism: Think like a Psychologist

2009-01-30T08:42:00.000-08:00

When thinking about environmentalism and environmental ethics, I typically approach the subject from a Christian perspective. We should protect the environment not just for human health, natural capital, aesthetic beauty, sustainability, or the moral considerations of animals, but also because "The LORD God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it."

This handy technique saves me an awful lot of time when arguing about ethics or morality in general. When someone asks why premarital sex is wrong, I can simply say, "Because God says so." and smugly retreat into the background. I don't have to back up the assertion with facts about disease or unwanted pregnancy or emotional dependency or divorcing a teleological act from its natural conclusion or larger sociological implications. That's putting the cart before the horse: sin causes Bad Effects, but Bad Effects don't offer complete insight into sin.

Instead, my main task in investigating ethics or morals is to use the principles set forth in Scripture. "Did God really say...?" This is easier done in some cases (premarital sex, homosexuality, Baal worship, lying, cheating) than in others (just wars, politics, economics).

I realize this isn't very convincing to people who do not accept the authority of Scripture. "Who cares what your God says? I don't think he's real!"

Getting people to act ethically when they don't accept the authority of Scripture is the point of this post, with a specific emphasis on environmental ethics. How do we do this? Is it even desirable?

I. Appeal to self-interest and self-preservation.

1. Point out dire direct effects of products/services.

Lead paint causes birth defects in children. Let's use less of it. Mercury is toxic and comes from coal. Let's burn less coal. PCB's and Naphthalene and Arsenic and Radon and VOC's and particulate matter all directly adversely affect human health, so they should be regulated.

I know this technique seems totally obvious, but it really wasn't popular until Silent Spring and the creation of the EPA.

2. Point out indirect environmental effects.

No one will be able to eat any fish at all if we overfish resources to extinction. CFC's aren't terrible by themselves, but they deplete stratospheric ozone levels and indirectly harm human health. Carbon Dioxide isn't particularly toxic, but causes global climate change, which will be a Very Bad Thing.

I would like to take a minute to talk about Global Climate Change and how it relates to human self-interest. When we talk about self-interest, it's natural for our first tendency to be to think about death or disasters. In the movie 'The Day After Tomorrow', global warming causes hurricanes and floods and ice storms that freeze airplanes that are flying through them and wolves to escape from zoos that eat people.

But I don't think that escaped wolves will be our biggest enemy. Instead, Climate Change will be. You won't be able to grow the same crops you did before. What was once a fertile area is now inhospitable, while a place that was desolate is now really nice- and really undeveloped. People will have to move and adapt. It will be very costly, and maybe the gain in new fertile areas will offset the loss of others. But with a huge chunk of the Earth's surface dominated by human development already, it will be hard to change.

Imagine you are playing Civilization IV. You place your cities, roads, and improvements based on the conditions you see. If those conditions change, if a grasslands turns into a hill, a hill into a mountain, a mountain into a desert, a desert into a flood plain, it will be little consolation that there is no net change in your resource distribution, all told. You will be pissed that you built all those windmills where you would have built a mine given a second chance, and that if you had placed London three squares to the right, it would be making more beakers.

3. Relate environmental issues to sustainability.

This week in discussion, a classmate said, "The term sustainability is so broad, that we decided that sustainability is what you get out of it." I disagree.

Sustainability is providing for current needs in a way that does not compromise the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

This is related to human self-interest thusly: if we compromise the ability of future generations to meet their needs, everybody dies in the future. We can use coal to make electricity if we want, but eventually, we will run out of coal, and then we will have nothing to make electricity.

I will try another analogy from a computer game because I am feeling Super Dorky today. In the game 'Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic', you play an enterprising young Jedi Knight who battles evil robots. To help you, you can use things called 'stimulants' that temporarily make you harder, better, faster, stronger. Now you can use those stimulants anytime you want, but you probably want to save them for later in the game when it gets harder. If at some point in the game you were using stimulants faster than you were finding them, many people would be critical of that strategy. They would say that if you kept employing the strategy, you would get to the end of the game and die. The needs of the future would not be able to be met.

II. Appeal to other ethical considerations.

Beyond self-preservation, there are other ethical considerations that a vast majority of people view as intuitively legitimate.

1. Environmental Equity

Because poor or disadvantaged people disproportionally live on marginal land, environmental problems that damage that land therefore disproportionally hurt those people. This argument is often advanced about global warming. Poor people living in the land right by the desert are hurt by droughts that they didn't even cause. No one wants toxic waste in their backyard, so disposal sites are located nearest the people with the weakest political power.

2. Aesthetic Considerations

Forests are pretty. So are tigers. Dolphins, especially! I normally am very disdainful of these arguments because they are so subjective and an appeal to emotion. However, those of us who are not evil robots will give some weight to emotions. Our emotions and our consciences are trying to tell us something. To go against conscience is neither right nor safe!

Questions for the Reader
Can anyone else think of any other reasons why other people might follow environmental ethics? Can you think of ways that I can articulate religious justification for environmental stewardship without coming across as a crazy man?

On to the earlier reason for this post

Initially, I wanted to talk about another thing that was said in the environmental discussion. We were talking about the future of sustainability, and what an environmentally sustainable world would look like. We mentioned advances in technology and social/political organization. They were very "Hope is the Future Change Our Children Can Believe In" kinds of ideas. Apparently, we need to vote for Barack Obama to Unite the Clans, and he will use his Leadership to make the world Sustainable.

Then another person talked about economics. He said that businesses would change, and that there would be less Corporations, and more local, smaller organizations. You see, these Corporations, they...they sit in their Corporation Buildings being all...uh...Corporation-y, see?

So does it follow that there will be less corporations? I don't think so. Are we going to seriously argue that everything needs to be local? A community needs to grow its own food to be sustainable? Its own steel, its own smelters, its own semiconductors, its own manufacturing? That would be silly. If Kansas can grow wheat for both places, why not have Pittsburgh trade them some steel for its wheat? So comparative advantage is good, as is trade. That doesn't necessarily guarantee that corporations have to exist or be huge, merely that efficiencies can be found on large scales.

What about industries that are capital-intensive? What about reducing barriers to entry into markets? What does adding sustainability into the mix add to the equation? I would argue, nothing. This is where psychology comes into the mix. I posit that this person thinks that there will be smaller corporations because Environmentalism is a Leftist issue, as is Hating Corporations. Sustainability to Environmentalism to Liberalism to anti-Corporatism.

Questions to the Reader
Am I correct in identifying this person's thinking? When are we guilty of doing this ourselves? What happens to corporations in the future?

Guitar Solos

2009-01-16T09:39:00.000-08:00

In light of previous discussions around the apartment, and with the express purpose of writing about nothing I promised to write about, I'd like to do a little list of my Personal Favorite Guitar Solos.

In case you don't remember, I have been a proponent of the idea that some music is better than others. Though my hold on the idea is more tenuous in the wake of The Night Dave Lost Every Argument, it's important to note that if you disagree with my solo list, you are Objectively Wrong, and should make your own inferior list.

5. This is the catch-all spot for bad or silly songs that nonetheless have face-melting guitar solos. These songs have a very 80's feel that perhaps reminds me of my childhood.

"My Sharona" by The Knack.
"Blinded by the Light" by ELO.
"Jenny (867-5309)" by Tommy TuTone.
"Cold as Ice" by Foreigner.

4. "Sultans of Swing" by Dire Straits. Mark Knopfler remains one of the most underrated musicians of all time I tell you!

This song is a good illustration of one of the many great uses of music: shared cultural influence. Story 1: my roommate and I bonded almost immediately after I suggested we go see a band that night. He replied that he "don't give a damn about a trumpet playing band", and I finished off the lyric, "it isn't what you call Rock 'n Roll?" Story 2: When asked what I was eating at the cafeteria, I Knopfler-ed 'Creole. Creole.' It's the kind of inside-joke allusion that I do too often and no one knows what I'm talking about, but it worked that time.

3. "Nanook Rubs It" by Frank Zappa. I'd like to put a lot of Zappa on here, including "Sofa no. 1", or "Sexual Harassment in the Workplace", both of which are entirely instrumental. "Sexual Harassment in the Workplace" has the single blues-iest note I've ever heard, which he just sits on and slowly bends for about 13 seconds. But I'm trying to be consistent, and songs that are entirely instrumental just don't qualify.

"Nanook Rubs It" is as good an explanation of Zappa as anything, really. If you get it, you get it, if you don't, you hate it and you hate me and my musical taste. It's the absurd story of an Eskimo named Nanook who rubs yellow snow in the eyes of a fur trapper (who is strictly from commercial), and the solo manages to represent the anger and sorrow of Nanook for his favorite baby seal, as well as the 'vigorous circular motion hitherto unknown to the people in the area: rub it'. It's just an excuse to jam out, and this lick is the kind of funky jazz that you blare in your car if you're trying to pick up chicks.

2. "Bell Bottom Blues" by Eric Clapton. I had a very hard time deciding between "Crossroads", "I'm Tore Down", "Layla", "Blues Power", "Cocaine", "Steppin' Out", and pretty much everything else.

"Layla" is perhaps the best-known, which is to its detriment; you can't be cool if everyone knows and loves you. Also, the song is helped immensely by its piano, and this is a list of guitar solos. Lastly, I am still livid from an argument years ago over whether the classic or acoustic version is better. Without that opening lick, piano transition, and screaming-desperate singing, the acoustic version has always seemed like just a novelty to me.

But I had to pick "Bell Bottom Blues" because I'm partial to solos that describe feelings better than lyrics ever could. The man is blue, but you get a better sense of that through the solo than when he sings "Do you want to hear me beg you to take me back? I'd gladly do it."

1. "Comfortably Numb" by Pink Floyd. According to legend, "Comfortably Numb" was finished by David Gilmore before it found a home in the mostly-Roger-Waters-led The Wall. Not only is it my favorite song off one of my favorite albums, but like "Bell Bottom Blues", it succeeds in creating feelings of isolation, fear, yearning for human contact, and a drug-fueled stupor. I would compare it to Raskolnikov's fever in Crime and Punishment, but that's a little grandiose, don't you think?

More American Culture At a Glance

2009-01-06T16:05:00.000-08:00

More off of the Youtube video of Beyonce's If I Were A Boy, this time from a user calling themselves 'FaceRider2008':

men dis girl is really sayn sumthng on how boys ack. not all but sum cuz there is sum gud guys out there but on tha otha had were they @. men she cudnt said it beta den me guys jus dnt how girls feels AT ALL

Is this a joke? Show me the 27-year-old man that wrote me this post. SHOW ME THIS!

More American Culture

2009-01-03T15:50:00.000-08:00

McDonald's now has a commercial featuring a wedding cake made out of Chicken McNuggets.

I feel that this is much more threatening to the institution of marriage than gay marriage ever could be.

An Acting Exercise

2008-12-30T18:34:00.000-08:00

Remember when blogs first came out and everybody, including (incredibly smart, handsome, caring, intimidating) engineers wrote cloying messages like they were 13-year-old girls visiting Paris?

Yeah, me too!

But I think you'll admit that my writing has improved as a result of this little endeavor. At the very least, it's sparked conversations with friends on just how exactly it is possible to live your life as if the Earth were flat.

So I know it's a little early for New Years Resolutions, but I'd like to codify what I'd like to talk about in the future:

1. The Epistle of St. Paul the Apostle to the Romans. Did you know my roommate thinks that St. Paul is dumb? It's true! But Paul's letter speaks to many important issues, ranging from social/cultural hot-button issues like homosexuality, to the role of religion in government. But that's just to get butts in the seats. The letter is also very clear when it explains how Christianity is supposed to work. As Luther wrote, "This letter is truly the most important piece in the New Testament. It is purest Gospel."

2. Twilight. I fear for our nation's youth!

3. Movies that are Not Twilight. I would review Rachel Getting Married if I had seen it. Unfortunately, I was stabbed in the back on that. Et tu, Brute?

4. Meta-critiques of my own hubris and arrogance. (Hint: this post counts!) Who uses the word 'hubris', anyway? Insufferable pricks, that's who. How come I have to prove to everyone how much smarter I am, how much righter I am, how much better I am? When will my parallel construction end?

American Culture At a Glance

2008-12-26T11:38:00.000-08:00

In the Youtube comments to Beyonce's "If I Were A Boy":

cuddels9x20x08 (4 minutes ago):
my ex could learn a thing or 2 from this song :(

John 21

2008-12-20T09:37:00.000-08:00

It's a Saturday, I've grown tired of reading rather than writing, so I might as well finish off this gospel. I've very much enjoyed this little project, as it's helped me study the Gospel in depth, and even revise my position on some issues. I hope the (few) readers of this have been informed as well, even if they have simply been informed that their friend David is a religionist and science stopper.

If reading this Gospel has changed one view of mine, it is my treatment of the miraculous and the evidence we have for Christianity. When asked for 'proof' of the validity of my religion, I used to say that faith is all the proof we will ever have. Indeed, if God had given us stronger proof (say, a giant message scrawled in the sky) it would destroy the value of belief. It's easy to get a test right if you're told the answers.

But I'm beginning to reconsider this. We are told, ultimately, that faith is needed to believe in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ and that this faith is created by the Holy Spirit. After all, when John runs to the tomb, we read simply that he saw and believed. But for those of us with weaker faith, we're given a lot of remedial help. Thomas puts his hand into Jesus' side and feels where the nails went through his hands. Jesus performs all sorts of miracles and John writes that 'these words are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.'

So it's not like God hasn't been helping us out. When asked for 'proof' of the validity of Christianity, why not say that Jesus was born of a virgin, turned water into wine, healed the lepers, gave sight to the blind, had a loud voice from heaven exclaim 'This is my Son- listen to him!', walked on water, raised the dead, fed the 5000, calmed the storm, and rose from the dead himself? You might not believe that evidence, but that belief comes as a consequence of faith.

Anyway, on to the final chapter of John's gospel, which has lots of applications for the big-c Church, as well as simple reconciliation for all men.

********************************
Jesus and the Miraculous Catch of Fish
1Afterward Jesus appeared again to his disciples, by the Sea of Tiberias.[a] It happened this way: 2Simon Peter, Thomas (called Didymus), Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. 3"I'm going out to fish," Simon Peter told them, and they said, "We'll go with you." So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.

4Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus.

5He called out to them, "Friends, haven't you any fish?"
"No," they answered.

6He said, "Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some." When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

7Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, "It is the Lord!" As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, "It is the Lord," he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water. 8The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards.[b] 9When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.

10Jesus said to them, "Bring some of the fish you have just caught."

11Simon Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. 12Jesus said to them, "Come and have breakfast." None of the disciples dared ask him, "Who are you?" They knew it was the Lord. 13Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish. 14This was now the third time Jesus appeared to his disciples after he was raised from the dead.
********************************

This isn't really about catching fish, obviously. The disciples are about to become 'fishers of men'. They are about to start the Church. This section emphasizes that they do so ONLY by the grace of God- without Jesus' help, they catch nothing. This doesn't mean that there should be no outreach ministries or missionaries (quite the opposite), but it does mean that it is not worship bands or powerpoint screens that make Christians- it's the Holy Spirit. The best way to employ those outreach talents is to make them obedient to Christ.

*****************************************************
Jesus Reinstates Peter
15When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me more than these?"
"Yes, Lord," he said, "you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Feed my lambs."

16Again Jesus said, "Simon son of John, do you truly love me?"
He answered, "Yes, Lord, you know that I love you."
Jesus said, "Take care of my sheep."

17 The third time he said to him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?"
Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, "Do you love me?" He said, "Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you."

Jesus said, "Feed my sheep. 18 I tell you the truth, when you were younger you dressed yourself and went where you wanted; but when you are old you will stretch out your hands, and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go." 19Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which Peter would glorify God. Then he said to him, "Follow me!"

20Peter turned and saw that the disciple whom Jesus loved was following them. (This was the one who had leaned back against Jesus at the supper and had said, "Lord, who is going to betray you?") 21When Peter saw him, he asked, "Lord, what about him?"

22Jesus answered, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me." 23Because of this, the rumor spread among the brothers that this disciple would not die. But Jesus did not say that he would not die; he only said, "If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you?"

24This is the disciple who testifies to these things and who wrote them down. We know that his testimony is true.

25Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have room for the books that would be written.
************************************************************************

This is the part of reconciliation I was talking about. Peter just weeks before had denied ever knowing Jesus. The fact that Jesus asks him three times if he loves him evokes Peter's denying him three times in the courtyard as Jesus was on trial.

Isn't this sort of mean of Jesus? I'm sure the last thing Peter wants to be reminded of is that time that he boasted of dying while fighting for Christ and then turning his back on him when Jesus needed him the most. On top of that, Jesus goes on to explain that Peter will die a pretty gruesome death! This is not the kind of reconciliation we see in the movies. We do not see:

Peter: I was whack.
Jesus: Let's hug it out.

To understand this, I think you have to understand Peter. He is the leader of the disciples, a bold man on the surface. But this boldness isn't supported all the time. Even though Peter has the ambition to see Jesus walking on water and asks Jesus to let him do it too, he is frightened by the wind.

From Matthew 14:
********************************************
During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake. 26When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. "It's a ghost," they said, and cried out in fear.

27But Jesus immediately said to them: "Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid."

28"Lord, if it's you," Peter replied, "tell me to come to you on the water."

29"Come," he said.

Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. 30But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, "Lord, save me!"
**************************************************

Later, in Matthew 16:
***********************************
21From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, chief priests and teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

22Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. "Never, Lord!" he said. "This shall never happen to you!"

23Jesus turned and said to Peter, "Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men."

24Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. 25For whoever wants to save his life[h] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
****************************************************

Finally, it's important to understand why Peter denied knowing Jesus in the courtyard. Not only was Peter very upset that Jesus wasn't going to be the kind of Messiah Peter wanted him to be, Peter was clearly scared for his own life. Peter is shocked and horrified when Jesus tells him in the garden that he has to die on the cross. I quote these passages trying to gain a little insight into the psychology of Peter. And I think it's not much of a stretch to say that Peter had a huge fear that many people share: the Fear of Dying.

This is why it's so important when Jesus says that Peter will die. He addresses the elephant in the room. But something has happened in the last few weeks that makes Peter able to lead the new church and suffer imprisonment and eventually death. That something, of course, is Christ's death and resurrection.

As Paul will later write, "Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?"

As proper a note to end on as any. E'en so, Lord Jesus, quickly come.

Obama Victorious

2008-11-05T07:31:00.000-08:00

You know what it feels like? It feels like when you're a kid, and you look down for a moment, and you lose your parents at Target and you completely freak out. You go to where they just were. You scan all the aisles. You're terrified.

But then you go around a bend and see them, and you know everything is going to be ok. The grownups are in charge.

To Caesar what is Caesar's

2008-10-26T15:32:00.000-07:00

Dedicated to Miss Chrissy Harbin, whose views diverge with my own in so many ways but who continues to be a person with opinions I value and trust.

This morning, there was a Bible Study between services on Christian Public Policy: Does Such a Thing Exist? The startling answer: probably, but we can't agree on too many specifics.

The discussion first looked at defining the separation between church and state, namely that there should be one.

Relevant Passages (Since we're Lutheran, we consider God's Word a pretty good source on this):

****************************************
Matthew 22:15-22
Then the Pharisees went out and laid plans to trap him in his words. They sent their disciples to him along with the Herodians. "Teacher," they said, "we know you are a man of integrity and that you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth. You aren't swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are. Tell us then, what is your opinion? Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not?"

But Jesus, knowing their evil intent, said, "You hypocrites, why are you trying to trap me? Show me the coin used for paying the tax." They brought him a denarius, and he asked them, "Whose portrait is this? And whose inscription?"

"Caesar's," they replied.
Then he said to them, "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's."

When they heard this, they were amazed. So they left him and went away.
*******************************************

Romans 13:1-7

Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he 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. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

**************************************

Paul's letter to the Romans and Jesus' words here say that there should be a distinction between church and state. St. Augustine called these two cities.

The church is its own organization with its own rules and regulations, established to serve its own purposes (e.g., preaching Christ and him crucified), and the government is its own organization with its own rules, regulations, and purposes (e.g., provide for public welfare, common defense, secure the blessings of liberty for ourselves and our posterity).

Put another way: Christianity isn't all that concerned with the speed limit on I-94, or CAFTA, or Card Check. It's concerned with sin, prophesy, redemption, evangelism, atonement, sacrifice, sanctification, grace, love, miracles, and salvation. Similarly, Congress does a good job creating the EPA, but can't do anything to protect your soul.

So, different roles, then. But what if those roles intersect? What if the government wants you to do something that God does not?

Relevant Passages:
*******************************************************
Acts 5:17-29

Then the high priest and all his associates, who were members of the party of the Sadducees, were filled with jealousy. They arrested the apostles and put them in the public jail. But during the night an angel of the Lord opened the doors of the jail and brought them out. "Go, stand in the temple courts," he said, "and tell the people the full message of this new life."

At daybreak they entered the temple courts, as they had been told, and began to teach the people.

When the high priest and his associates arrived, they called together the Sanhedrin—the full assembly of the elders of Israel—and sent to the jail for the apostles. But on arriving at the jail, the officers did not find them there. So they went back and reported, "We found the jail securely locked, with the guards standing at the doors; but when we opened them, we found no one inside." On hearing this report, the captain of the temple guard and the chief priests were puzzled, wondering what would come of this.

Then someone came and said, "Look! The men you put in jail are standing in the temple courts teaching the people." At that, the captain went with his officers and brought the apostles. They did not use force, because they feared that the people would stone them.

Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. "We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name," he said. "Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood."

Peter and the other apostles replied: "We must obey God rather than men!
**************************************************************

Daniel 2:48-49, 3:1,4-6,8-12,16-18

Then the king placed Daniel in a high position and lavished many gifts on him. He made him ruler over the entire province of Babylon and placed him in charge of all its wise men. Moreover, at Daniel's request the king appointed Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego administrators over the province of Babylon, while Daniel himself remained at the royal court...

King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, ninety feet high and nine feet wide, and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon...Then the herald loudly proclaimed, "This is what you are commanded to do, O peoples, nations and men of every language: As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace."....

At this time some astrologers came forward and denounced the Jews. They said to King Nebuchadnezzar, "O king, live forever! You have issued a decree, O king, that everyone who hears the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipes and all kinds of music must fall down and worship the image of gold, and that whoever does not fall down and worship will be thrown into a blazing furnace. But there are some Jews whom you have set over the affairs of the province of Babylon—Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego—who pay no attention to you, O king. They neither serve your gods nor worship the image of gold you have set up."...

...Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego replied to the king, "O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to defend ourselves before you in this matter. If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to save us from it, and he will rescue us from your hand, O king. But even if he does not, we want you to know, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up."
***************************************************************

Daniel also gets in trouble and is thrown into the lion's den for not toeing the religious company line. But he is one of the most powerful men in the government, as are his friends. So the principle here is clear: if the civil law of a government forces you to sin, you still shouldn't do it.

In the passage from Acts, a similar message. Even if the government prohibits righteous action, you still should do it.

&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&
Veggie Tales Tangent

I watch a lot of Saturday morning cartoons. One of those was the ostensibly Christian-ish 'Veggie Tales', which (kind of) retells Bible stories using anthropomorphic vegetables. They even do a show about the Hebrews in the fiery furnace that I quoted above.

Except they change the story importantly enough that it loses all (Christian) meaning. Instead of forsaking the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, these talking tomatoes are required (against their will) to sing a song to a giant chocolate bunny about how eating candy is awesome. So, instead of being a story about incredible faith in God and His deliverance, it becomes a story about standing up to peer pressure. And eating less candy.

While technically a virtue, eating less candy is pretty far down on the ladder.

Does this watered-down-to-the-point-of-meaninglessness cartoon reflect an alarming trend among modern Christianity today to spout uncontentious platitudes that is poisoning our children?

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming.
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&&

You may have noticed that we are still a long, long, long way away from anything resembling Christian Public Policy. So far we have just two boundaries: different roles, and obeying God rather than Jim Doyle.

Here's a third we discussed this morning: be adamant about following the civil portions of the ten commandments. Thou shalt not murder. Thou shalt not steal. Thou shalt not give false testimony. Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Of course, I felt this third boundary begged the question a bit. Would Moses have made the same distinction between civil and religious law that we do? Surely the question now becomes, "which of the ten commandments counts as civil law?". Until recently, it was illegal to do many things on Sundays. Adultery isn't a crime, either, though governments often use it as a grounds for granting divorces, so it is recognized.

Not only are these commandments important for us to follow, but we have some kind of duty and obligation to get other people to follow them, too.

Relevant Passage:
*********************************************************
Ezekiel 3:18-19

When I say to a wicked man, 'You will surely die,' and you do not warn him or speak out to dissuade him from his evil ways in order to save his life, that wicked man will die for his sin, and I will hold you accountable for his blood. But if you do warn the wicked man and he does not turn from his wickedness or from his evil ways, he will die for his sin; but you will have saved yourself.
*************************************************************

Now, that's an exhortation to the prophet Ezekiel to tell people what God told him. He's in trouble either way, so he might as well have the people of Israel be mad at him rather than God. Its application to government and Christian public policy is a little more tenuous, though.

The passage (and others) suggests that if I see people around me sinning, I am required to do something about it. This isn't incredibly controversial: if one person sees a murder in progress, most people would think it would be bad to not testify in court.

But this still isn't all that helpful. Take abortion as an example. Christians are required to do something about abortion, but what that something is isn't exactly clear. Ezekiel isn't supposed to go around with a glock and demand that the Israelites of his day shape up- he's just supposed to announce how angry God is. And whatever you think about abortion, it's very clear that Christians have announced how angry God is about it. But do we codify that into the civil laws of the United States of America? We still haven't had a whole lot of direction there, yet.

So that was about as far as the discussion this morning got. The last part we talked about was investigating John 18. Just a reminder of the important parts:

*************************************************
Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"

"Is that your own idea," Jesus asked, "or did others talk to you about me?"

"Am I a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?"

Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."
*********************************************************

The discussion said that Christians too often hide behind this passage to not get involved in politics. The passage establishes Jesus as a religious leader, not a political one (at least, not yet). It doesn't say that Christians shouldn't be politicians.

Overall, I felt that the discussion lacked a little rigor and clarity. Saying that Christians should speak out against murder doesn't logically entail that abortion is to be punishable by death. Jesus and St. Paul seem to have a dim view of government: compared to eternal salvation, it's small potatoes. But Christians are also supposed to "take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ".

So don't pay too much attention to government. Except when you should. Codify the Ten Commandments. Except for some of them. Don't speak for God through government. But do follow Christian principles even when you're not at church. Color me confused.

Barack Obama tried to lay out his governing philosophy as to where to draw the line in his book, "The Audacity of Bill Ayres". I don't feel like quoting it, but the basic premise was that Christians should not use religious arguments to write civil laws. The definition of human rights should be based on argumentation like whether a fetus has consciousness, or whether it can feel pain, or whether it will have a non-suffering-filled life, or whether it has 'agency'. It cannot be about a soul.

The governmental principles surrounding environmentalism should not be about stewardship or creation. They should be about sustainability, balancing industry and nature, or that the natural world has intrinsic value (provided that that value isn't put there by God).

Frankly, I find this disingenuous and, ultimately, ineffective. If my purpose is to enact environmental legislation, and my motivation is that God says we should be good stewards of the Earth, why should I translate that motivation into something more palatable for the general populace? Isn't that just, you know, lying? I don't really think that the aesthetic beauty of a tree is worth 20 utils, while the paper from that tree only provides 15. It's just a cloak.

Further, I just don't think that non-religious justifications for human rights are strong enough. Andrew Hanson and David Hume may think otherwise, but even non-Christian Thomas Jefferson wrote of a Creator giving people inalienable rights. If you have to invent a crypto-religious proxy-belief to convince other people, don't be surprised when that proxy-belief isn't as robust or convincing as the real thing.

Kind of like how Intelligent Design people are fence-sitters.

Why not mean what you say and say what you mean? If people don't like your environmental laws, they don't have to vote for you. If the court thinks you've violated the First Amendment, so be it.

I wish I could pack these ideas into Sunday morning only, Chrissy, but God's grace has few boundaries. So either kick the religious wackos out of your party, or come over to the Democrats with me. Don't you want to vote for a winner?

The President's On!!!!

2008-10-10T07:28:00.000-07:00

HE'S ON EVERY CHANNEL!!!!!

Sarah Palin: Wow

2008-09-25T21:56:00.000-07:00

Just...wow.

John 20

2008-09-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

Perhaps the most important chapter in the Bible. I'm not incredibly optimistic that my comments will be more helpful or elucidating than just reading the thing, so expect less analysis and more reflection.

***************************************

The Empty Tomb

1Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!"

3So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6Then Simon Peter, who was behind him, arrived and went into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7as well as the burial cloth that had been around Jesus' head. The cloth was folded up by itself, separate from the linen. 8Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9(They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.)

*********************************************************

The 'other disciple' is John, the writer. Throughout this gospel, he calls himself 'the disciple Jesus loved', which is as powerful a testimony to the character of Jesus as his raising the dead or healing the sick. The message of having both "Jesus was so great- he walked on water!" and "Jesus was so great- he loved me!" is that Jesus is not only holy and powerful, but that he is personal and interested in each of us.

Also, this section is important for combating another strange heresy I've encountered: a denial of the bodily resurrection of Jesus. It's become somewhat popular to interpret the Bible as allegory or myth rather than history. Jesus didn't really rise from the dead- his spirit did, or his spirit lives on in all of us as long as we keep it alive, or...something. I don't know. Ask the Episcopalians. But Jesus isn't a ghost- his body isn't in the tomb, which means it must be somewhere else. And this isn't a grave robbing- the linen is folded neatly. Mary's first idea is wrong. If you question the validity of scripture, that's one thing. But it's entirely different to insist that it says something other than that Jesus rose from the dead with his body.

Thirdly, this passage speaks to the nature of belief. We're told that John 'saw and believed'. John hadn't even seen Jesus alive yet, but he still saw the empty tomb and believed that Jesus had risen from the dead. Did John base his belief on empirical evidence? Kind of- I suppose you could argue that he saw the absense of Jesus's body as evidence of his resurrection. But John also trusts God and trusts his friend Jesus, and that's where this belief stems from. Jesus had told all of them what would happen in the Upper Room, and John and Peter are just piecing it together now.

Lastly, on this bit about how the disciples didn't know from scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead. It's included in here to show that the disciples would have no motive to steal Jesus's body and pretend that he rose- the thought just never occurred to them. Fulfilling prophecy is important throughout the New Testament, but the mechanisms of this are strange. Jesus has a great knowledge of the scriptures, so it's clear that he knows what he has to do to fulfill them. But his disciples only know about it afterward, and they are the ones who will preach Christianity. Why is this?

Perhaps it's because fulfilling prophecy for prophecy's sake destroys its legitimacy. Imagine that you are living in 200 B.C. and want to be a messiah. To get people to believe you, you have to fulfill scripture. So you get yourself a checklist of important parts of scripture, then go down the list fulfilling what you need to. You read that none of your bones should be broken, so you get really good health insurance. You read that 'out of Egypt I called my son', so you go down to Egypt and hang out for a while, then come back. Then you hold a press conference about how you've fulfilled all prophecy. This strategy works as long as the Press believes the same interpretations of scripture, but this is begging the question, a bit, isn't it?

That may be a good reason why the disciples are so in the dark for so long: by not knowing God's plan fully, it becomes a story about God's plan being carried to fruition by Jesus, without help even from his friends. For more on this nature of prophecy, read Oedipus Rex, Minority Report, or Harry Potter.

*********************************************************

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene

10Then the disciples went back to their homes, 11but Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus' body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

13They asked her, "Woman, why are you crying?"

"They have taken my Lord away," she said, "and I don't know where they have put him." 14At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

15"Woman," he said, "why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?"
Thinking he was the gardener, she said, "Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him."

16Jesus said to her, "Mary."
She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, "Rabboni!" (which means Teacher).

17Jesus said, "Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet returned to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, 'I am returning to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.' "

18Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: "I have seen the Lord!" And she told them that he had said these things to her.

*******************************************************

This section speaks for itself. Just keep track that Mary doesn't believe in the Resurrection until Jesus walks up to her and speaks her name and gives her a hug, even if John (and maybe Peter) already do.

********************************************************

Jesus Appears to His Disciples

19On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 20After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

21Again Jesus said, "Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you." 22And with that he breathed on them and said, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven."

**********************************************************

Again, this shows Jesus rising in bodily form- his hands and side are still pierced. How his body still breathes and metabolizes with a ruptured spleen or liver or whatever isn't explained. Maybe it doesn't. Maybe the reason why Jesus wasn't recognized before was that he looked a little different. Or maybe he didn't allow Mary to recognize him at first.

Jesus has some good first words, too: "Peace be with you!" He is declaring just what his resurrection means: it is proof that God and men are now at peace with one another. This message must be preached to all corners of the world.

*******************************************************

Jesus Appears to Thomas

24Now Thomas (called Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. 25So the other disciples told him, "We have seen the Lord!"
But he said to them, "Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe it."

26A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, "Peace be with you!" 27Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

28Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"

29Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

30Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. 31But these are written that you may^[a] believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.

**************************************************************

Again, this goes to the nature of belief, and is a little hard to comprehend. Jesus says that it is a virtue to believe in Him and his resurrection even without having seen him. But he also appears to his disciples, anyway. How hard is it to believe in the resurrection if you see Jesus die, then see him ten days later alive again? Not as hard as it is 2000 years later, I think we'd say. But John adds that this Gospel serves as a testimony, making belief easier and possible.

Moreover, what moral courage does it take to believe in the resurrection when you see Jesus right in front of you? This is what Jesus means when he says that those who do not have this empirical evidence are 'blessed' when they still believe.

Some might argue that this sets a bad precedent: can't I go to God on Judgment Day and say that it's not fair to save Thomas because he got to put his finger in Jesus's side, but all I got was this lousy book? Or what about people who don't even have that- it's easier for me to be a Christian because my family is.

Scripture answers this in plenty of ways, saying that God saves who he does and that his reasons for doing so are beyond our comprehension, saying that he's given everyone a conscience and knowledge of God so that "every man is without excuse", saying that he's testified about himself a whole lot- through the Old Testament, and here with the New. But this section also says that God listens to our concerns about our own faith. It should be enough for Thomas to believe his friends' testimony about Jesus. After all, that's all Christians today have. But God is prepared to go beyond what is needed, and will indulge us and help us believe in him.

He did it before when Peter walked on water. He did it again with the father of a girl who had died. He did it again with Thomas. And he does it again today. If we are feeling insecure about God's existance or his grace or resurrection, we can pray to Him for help, and we know that God will answer our prayer, and that He will say to all of us: "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."

And the award for most-f'd-up-thing-I've-read-recently goes to...

2008-09-01T11:33:00.000-07:00

A comment on Tyler Cowen's blog, in a post about Sarah Palin. Palin has a child with Down Syndrome, and decided to not abort it, even though she found out early in the pregnancy. That's a very moral thing to do, and I respect Palin for doing it. She seems to truly believe and practice what she says she does, which is more than I can say for many (affair-having, closeted homosexual, money embezzaling) Republicans.

Anyway, a commenter named 'talenkine' posts this:

Surely Palin knew that having a down syndrome baby would be a credibility indicator, so that makes her decision less of a true credibility indicator. It seems plausible that she wanted to abort the baby but didn't because it could help her career (and because of the risk that someone might find out about her abortion, which could be devastating to her as a pro-life politician).

As you know, I don't really give a lot of credence to the 'culture wars'. I hold religious beliefs that many people find out-dated, offensive, silly, or stupid. I think their religious beliefs are offensive or stupid. Then we arm wrestle, I win, and that's that. But when someone is so jaded and cynical that every action is a calculated move for More Power, I am surprised and start to buy into the Culture Wars theory.

Palin also wants to teach Creationism in the classroom. As a believer in Creation who supports teaching Evolution in public classrooms, I am less impressed with her. My view of science is less that it is a Pursuit of Truth, and more a Pursuit of Workable Solutions. You may believe that disease is caused by tiny trolls living inside your belly. Someone else might think it's the result of escherichia coli, which can be combated by substituting penicillin to make their cell walls burst from water pressure. It matters less which theory of disease is Correct, and more which theory of disease is more likely to lead to technology which prevents disease.

There, I said it. Science is only a tool for better technology, not a means of Finding Truth. Sucks to your ass-mar, Richard Dawkins. That's something only an absurdly reductionist arrogant engineer would say. Andy, I expect you to categorize this belief- I can't remember if it's Determinist, Consequentialist, Popperian, post-Popperian or what. And none of your sass.

And another thing! A friend of mine commented on how Don Miller gave the closing devotional at the Democratic National Convention last week. Don Miller is a writer, popular among young Evangelicals. He's also a Democrat. I'm no Evangelical, but the prospect that there could be other young Christians who are also politically liberal and vote Democratic is very exciting to me. Here's his prayer:

"Father God,
This week, as the world looks on, help the leaders in this room create a civil dialogue about our future.
We need you, God, as individuals and also as a nation.
We need you to protect us from our enemies, but also from ourselves, because we are easily tempted toward apathy.
Give us a passion to advance opportunities for the least of these, for widows and orphans, for single moms and children whose fathers have left.
Give us the eyes to see them, and the ears to hear them, and hands willing to serve them.
Help us serve people, not just causes. And stand up to specific injustices rather than vague notions.
Give those in this room who have power, along with those who will meet next week, the courage to work together to finally provide health care to those who don’t have any, and a living wage so families can thrive rather than struggle.
Help us figure out how to pay teachers what they deserve and give children an equal opportunity to get a college education.
Help us figure out the balance between economic opportunity and corporate gluttony.
We have tried to solve these problems ourselves but they are still there. We need your help.
Father, will you restore our moral standing in the world?
A lot of people don’t like us but that’s because they don’t know the heart of the average American.
Will you give us favor and forgiveness, along with our allies around the world?
Help us be an example of humility and strength once again.
Lastly, father, unify us.
Even in our diversity help us see how much we have in common.
And unify us not just in our ideas and in our sentiments—but in our actions, as we look around and figure out something we can do to help create an America even greater than the one we have come to cherish.
God we know that you are good.
Thank you for blessing us in so many ways as Americans.
I make these requests in the name of your son, Jesus, who gave his own life against the forces of injustice.
Let Him be our example.
Amen."

Sorry for the weird formatting. But is it too reactionary of me to be a little uneasy with this prayer? I'm not saying you have to pray the Book of Concord or the Large Cathecism or anything, but something a little more Jesus-y than 'gave his own life against the forces of injustice' would be nice. There's nothing particularly wrong or doctrinally unsound about the prayer, but I'm beginning to understand more and more why WELS frowns upon this sort of thing. It's very easy and tempting to reduce prayer to something so bland and non-offensive that no one can be upset with it, but that isn't exactly how Jesus taught us to pray.

My brother and I went to a Fraternity Dinner once, when the Whitewater Chapter came over to celebrate the opening of a Pi Kappa Alpha chapter here in Madison. The people were interesting, the food was delicious, and it was a fancy time. But I haven't been more uneasy than when they led a prayer at the dinner. Everyone had their heads bowed except for Ed and I. We shared a look of skepticism and discomfort. That makes us caricatures of prudish, WASP-y, WELS-er elites, I know, but surely someone out there on the Internet will have my back on this one.

Look at my record-high levels of ennui! I ask for Democratic Christians, and when one makes a prayer I think is wussy, I still can't be satisfied. I highly doubt I will find the Republican prayer any more acceptable.

John 19

2008-08-16T11:15:00.000-07:00

Let's finish this thing sometime, eh?

Jesus Sentenced to be Crucified

1Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. 2The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe 3and went up to him again and again, saying, "Hail, king of the Jews!" And they struck him in the face.

4Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews, "Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him." 5When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, "Here is the man!"

6As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, "Crucify! Crucify!"
But Pilate answered, "You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him."

7The Jews insisted, "We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God."

8When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, 9and he went back inside the palace. "Where do you come from?" he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. 10"Do you refuse to speak to me?" Pilate said. "Don't you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?"

11Jesus answered, "You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin."

12From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jews kept shouting, "If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar."

13When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge's seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha). 14It was the day of Preparation of Passover Week, about the sixth hour.
"Here is your king," Pilate said to the Jews.

15But they shouted, "Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!"
"Shall I crucify your king?" Pilate asked.
"We have no king but Caesar," the chief priests answered.

16Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

**********************************************************************

There are a couple things at play in this section, including the nature of authority, and passing the buck.

First, on the nature of authority. Pilate is a very powerful man, as the Roman governor. But just what is power? The most memorable definition I ever heard came back in the 10th grade, in that inappropriate, offensive, but clear vernacular: "power means you can tell those two guys over there to start f&^%ing each other, even if (or especially if) they're not gay."

It's the capacity to impose your own wants and desires on the world around you, to Create your own world along your own standards, and not having those standards questioned or compromised, no matter what. How people go about achieving that end can be different. I'm reminded of the superhero from a cartoon of my childhood whose superpower was being super-rich. Instead of fighting off mindless footsoldiers to get into a secret compound, he could just buy them off, and it worked just as effectively as the guy with razor claws.

Or think of military, political, cultural, technological approaches to power. This philosophy is basically Nietzsche's Will to Power Meets Civilization IV.

Now, how this relates to the section of scripture at hand. Jesus, as God, is infinitely more powerful than Pilate or the chief priests. But he is, ironically, subject to their will and their judgment. This irony is intended to show that Pilate's (and by extension, all worldly) authority and power is ultimately nothing compared to God's. All human authority and power is given by God. The breaking of the hierarchy seen in the Garden of Eden, and again at Babel and throughout the Bible, is put back in order.

This approach to what constitutes true power is truly radical- to think that the humblest believer will hold a more powerful place a billion years from now than the most powerful king, president, or general!

Next, on to passing the buck. We're told that "from then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free", so Pilate was obviously trying not to take responsibility for Christ's death. Then again, the Jews can't be held accountable either-that's why they took Jesus to Pilate in the first place. If they execute Jesus unilaterally, it will destroy everything they had worked for. They wanted to negotiate with the Romans years later and say, "Don't be so harsh on us, we have been loyal subjects and deserve a bit of leeway. You owe us that much. Didn't we prove it to you when we brought you Jesus the rebel? We could have supported him and rebelled against you, but we didn't." To have the Romans reply, "You killed him yourselves, we had no part in your infighting. Jesus was no threat to Roman rule, so we credit you with nothing" won't do.

Eventually, both sides pass the buck, just as Adam did ("the woman you put here gave me the fruit, and I ate"), just as we do in our own lives, but both are eventually found culpable. Interestingly, both sides absolve themselves by appealing to a Higher Authority- but it's Caesar, not God. They'd like to do something different, but they can't pull rank on this, and the highest rank is...Caesar. Again this is the defining notion of the Rebellion: putting Man ahead of God.

*************************************************************

The Crucifixion

So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. 17Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). 18Here they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle.

19Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read:|sc JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. 21The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, "Do not write 'The King of the Jews,' but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews."

22Pilate answered, "What I have written, I have written."

23When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

24"Let's not tear it," they said to one another. "Let's decide by lot who will get it."
This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled which said,
"They divided my garments among them
and cast lots for my clothing."^[a] So this is what the soldiers did.

25Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. 26When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, "Dear woman, here is your son," 27and to the disciple, "Here is your mother." From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

************************************************

Pilate pulls some passive-aggressive stuff here. Perhaps feeling a little weak having been manipulated into crucifying this man, Pilate tries to turn the situation to his advantage. His message to the Jews is clear: anyone challenging the rightful rule of Rome will be crushed, humiliated, and publically crucified until they die by slow asphyxiation.

Many of the disciples will challenge the rule of Rome, saying that it is ultimately under the rule of God, and they will be crucified as well. The one disciple that doesn't get martyred is John, the writer of this gospel, and the one charged with taking care of Jesus' mother.

**********************************************************

The Death of Jesus

28Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty." 29A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips. 30When he had received the drink, Jesus said, "It is finished." With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

31Now it was the day of Preparation, and the next day was to be a special Sabbath. Because the Jews did not want the bodies left on the crosses during the Sabbath, they asked Pilate to have the legs broken and the bodies taken down. 32The soldiers therefore came and broke the legs of the first man who had been crucified with Jesus, and then those of the other. 33But when they came to Jesus and found that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. 34Instead, one of the soldiers pierced Jesus' side with a spear, bringing a sudden flow of blood and water. 35The man who saw it has given testimony, and his testimony is true. He knows that he tells the truth, and he testifies so that you also may believe. 36These things happened so that the scripture would be fulfilled: "Not one of his bones will be broken,"^[b] 37and, as another scripture says, "They will look on the one they have pierced."^[c]

The Burial of Jesus

38Later, Joseph of Arimathea asked Pilate for the body of Jesus. Now Joseph was a disciple of Jesus, but secretly because he feared the Jews. With Pilate's permission, he came and took the body away. 39He was accompanied by Nicodemus, the man who earlier had visited Jesus at night. Nicodemus brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about seventy-five pounds.^[d] 40Taking Jesus' body, the two of them wrapped it, with the spices, in strips of linen. This was in accordance with Jewish burial customs. 41At the place where Jesus was crucified, there was a garden, and in the garden a new tomb, in which no one had ever been laid. 42Because it was the Jewish day of Preparation and since the tomb was nearby, they laid Jesus there.

***********************************************************************

This part about piercing Jesus's side is important because it proves that he was physically dead. When asked about the reanimation of dead tissue in Young Frankenstein, Gene Wilder says, "You are talking about the nonsensical ravings of a lunatic mind! Dead is dead!" Perhaps what is so offensive and terrifying about Frankenstein (and zombies, and vampires) is the way people go about seeking immortality- by getting help from the Devil, or human biology.

But we'll see another Way shortly.

Back at it- John 18

2008-07-19T09:15:00.000-07:00

I initially took a break from these, as the conclusion of the school year, the conclusion of the weekly Bible Study, and a bit of a thematic conclusion in the book of John itself all suggested putting this on the shelf for a while. But today's a lazy Saturday with everybody out of town, and I haven't written in a while, so it's either this, baseball, or politics.

***
John 18

Jesus Arrested

1When he had finished praying, Jesus left with his disciples and crossed the Kidron Valley. On the other side there was an olive grove, and he and his disciples went into it.

2Now Judas, who betrayed him, knew the place, because Jesus had often met there with his disciples. 3So Judas came to the grove, guiding a detachment of soldiers and some officials from the chief priests and Pharisees. They were carrying torches, lanterns and weapons.

4Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, "Who is it you want?"

5"Jesus of Nazareth," they replied.

"I am he," Jesus said. (And Judas the traitor was standing there with them.) 6When Jesus said, "I am he," they drew back and fell to the ground.

7Again he asked them, "Who is it you want?"
And they said, "Jesus of Nazareth."

8"I told you that I am he," Jesus answered. "If you are looking for me, then let these men go." 9This happened so that the words he had spoken would be fulfilled: "I have not lost one of those you gave me."

10Then Simon Peter, who had a sword, drew it and struck the high priest's servant, cutting off his right ear. (The servant's name was Malchus.)

11Jesus commanded Peter, "Put your sword away! Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me?"

***

Two things of note, one of plot, and another of more purely religious substance.

First: what's up with Judas' betrayal?

As a child, I don't think I fully understood even the pure mechanism of Judas' betrayal. When I saw betrayal in movies or books or TV, it was a little more plain. The James Bond Girl ties him up and sets up a bomb to betray the West. The guy from The Matrix tells the Machines where to find Neo. Isildur keeps the One Ring for himself instead of throwing it into the lava and betrays Elrond! But leading the soldiers to Jesus isn't as obvious as this, so I didn't get it right away.

Surely the soldiers knew where Jesus was before. He had been teaching in the streets and mountainsides and temples. It seems to be that they needed a quiet spot away from crowds where Jesus was most vulnerable, so they could arrest him and there wouldn't be a big public outcry against it. That's Judas's betrayal: show the soldiers where Jesus is so there isn't a riot. Only someone with intimate knowledge of Jesus would be able to supply that information, so this is what makes Judas's betrayal both necessary to the religious authorities doing it, and actually effective.

But would there have been a big public outcry if Jesus had been arrested in public? Only a few days before, Jesus had come into Jerusalem hailed as a king. Everyone had a big parade. He was very popular. I think it's reasonable to think that if the High Priest had moved then, if there had been guards who had swooped in to take away Jesus, donky, colt, and all, there would have been a riot.

But Jesus was also a somewhat controversial figure. When he told people that they needed to eat his body and drink his blood, we're told that a great many people turned away from him- "surely this is a hard teaching!" Even when he drove out demons from people (see Matthew 8), this made others frightened of him and they begged him to leave their town. Earlier, in John 8 and again in 10, Jesus makes a very straightforward claim to being the Son of God ("before Abraham was born, I Am!"), and is almost stoned to death.

Lastly, on Good Friday, those same voices that cried out 'Hossanah in the Highest!' days earlier scream, 'Crucify! Crucify! We have no King but Caesar- give Barabbas to us!' We're told that the people are manipulated by the Teachers of the Law to say these things, so it's unclear whether this represents their true feelings, or if they're coerced. Probably a mixture of both, though. (This is not an argument that these actions cannot be condemned or that they get off the hook. Adam and Eve were tricked and coerced into eating the fruit, but played an active role in it themselves, too)

The point is important. The people need to rabidly support Jesus, or else Judas's betrayal is pretty meaningless. But they also need to be upset with him and reject him, or else he will not be crucified in the end, and moreover, I will not be able to see myself in the crowd, shouting for Christ's death along with the rest of my fellow sinners.

The fact that I can see myself in that crowd at times, that as the illustrious Alex Gallagher once posted on our wall, "Sometimes we murder our saviors", is as dramatic an illustration of God's grace as any I can conceive. "But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us".

So what facilitates this shift from support to dejection? We can maybe answer this by looking at what makes Jesus popular, and at what makes him unpopular in the past. This also dovetails a bit with my second point in this section of scripture. Jesus is at his most popular when he's healing the sick, blind, deaf, and lame, when he's feeding 5,000 people with bread and fish, when he's preaching that poor people have the riches of Heaven to store up.

He's very unpopular when he says that He is the way to get there, that followers have to give up everything to follow Him, and that He (and he alone) is the Son of God. In short, people expect a different kind of Messiah than Christ has come to be. They want a political King to overthrow the Romans. They want a medical King to heal their diseases. They want a cooking King to give them food without cost. When they find out that Jesus is instead a spiritual King, they turn on him.

Perhaps Peter himself is one of these people frustrated with Jesus. He thinks that right now, tonight, in this very garden, is where the Revolution is about to begin. He pulls out his sword and delivers the first blow in establishing God's Kingdom on Earth. And is quickly repremanded by his best friend: what you think is going to happen, isn't, Peter. Is it any wonder that Peter denies knowing his best friend three times and weeps bitterly? Peter finds that what he has dedicated his life to is a lie.

Isn't this very much like what we see today, too? People are very eager to believe in a Nice, Gentle Jesus who tells people to be excellent to one another, the kind of Jesus who gives great big hugs and wipes away tears, but who is a super-glossed-over version of the Jesus in the Bible who demands your love and life and says he is the Son of God. If you ask people what they think the central teaching of Christianity is, they are very likely to tell you to "treat others as you would like to be treated", and not "Jesus was the Son of God who died for our sins."

*****

Jesus Taken to Annas

12Then the detachment of soldiers with its commander and the Jewish officials arrested Jesus. They bound him 13and brought him first to Annas, who was the father-in-law of Caiaphas, the high priest that year. 14Caiaphas was the one who had advised the Jews that it would be good if one man died for the people.

Peter's First Denial

15Simon Peter and another disciple were following Jesus. Because this disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the high priest's courtyard, 16but Peter had to wait outside at the door. The other disciple, who was known to the high priest, came back, spoke to the girl on duty there and brought Peter in.

17"You are not one of his disciples, are you?" the girl at the door asked Peter.
He replied, "I am not."

18It was cold, and the servants and officials stood around a fire they had made to keep warm. Peter also was standing with them, warming himself.

The High Priest Questions Jesus

19Meanwhile, the high priest questioned Jesus about his disciples and his teaching.

20"I have spoken openly to the world," Jesus replied. "I always taught in synagogues or at the temple, where all the Jews come together. I said nothing in secret. 21Why question me? Ask those who heard me. Surely they know what I said."

22When Jesus said this, one of the officials nearby struck him in the face. "Is this the way you answer the high priest?" he demanded.

23"If I said something wrong," Jesus replied, "testify as to what is wrong. But if I spoke the truth, why did you strike me?" 24Then Annas sent him, still bound, to Caiaphas the high priest.
***

I've always loved this exchange that Jesus gave. It's designed to always proclaim and testify about Jesus. The Son of God being put to death for the crime of blasphemy, of claiming to be what he was, is as much an act of rebellion as Adam, as Babel. Those who claim to be unjustly punished for the sins of their fathers should remember this. Sin is not just stubbing your toe or getting confused and carrying a 2 when you should have carried a 1 while doing addition in your head. It's not just hurting someone else's feelings unknowingly. It's not just moral weakness. It is active, knowing rebellion. When I confess that I am by nature sinful, I am confessing not only that I am possible of human error and 'oops!' moments, but that in my inmost being, there is a part of me that hates God, that rebels against him, that is jealous of his power and questioning of his love.

***

Peter's Second and Third Denials

25As Simon Peter stood warming himself, he was asked, "You are not one of his disciples, are you?"
He denied it, saying, "I am not."

26One of the high priest's servants, a relative of the man whose ear Peter had cut off, challenged him, "Didn't I see you with him in the olive grove?" 27Again Peter denied it, and at that moment a rooster began to crow.

Jesus Before Pilate

28Then the Jews led Jesus from Caiaphas to the palace of the Roman governor. By now it was early morning, and to avoid ceremonial uncleanness the Jews did not enter the palace; they wanted to be able to eat the Passover. 29So Pilate came out to them and asked, "What charges are you bringing against this man?"

30"If he were not a criminal," they replied, "we would not have handed him over to you."

31Pilate said, "Take him yourselves and judge him by your own law."

"But we have no right to execute anyone," the Jews objected. 32This happened so that the words Jesus had spoken indicating the kind of death he was going to die would be fulfilled.

33Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, "Are you the king of the Jews?"

34"Is that your own idea," Jesus asked, "or did others talk to you about me?"

35"Am I a Jew?" Pilate replied. "It was your people and your chief priests who handed you over to me. What is it you have done?"

36Jesus said, "My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place."

37"You are a king, then!" said Pilate.
Jesus answered, "You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me."

38"What is truth?" Pilate asked. With this he went out again to the Jews and said, "I find no basis for a charge against him. 39But it is your custom for me to release to you one prisoner at the time of the Passover. Do you want me to release 'the king of the Jews'?"

40They shouted back, "No, not him! Give us Barabbas!" Now Barabbas had taken part in a rebellion.

***

This section is chock-full of the motif I wrote about earlier: Pilate and the Jews think that Jesus means to be a political ruler, where Jesus is interested in being a divine one.

This section also speaks of two foils. Peter is a foil of Judas, and Barabbas is a foil of Jesus. Barabbas is a political rebel, the kind of person Jesus could have chosen to be if he'd wanted. An army with endless amounts of bread and divine protection would make for an unstoppable rebelling force. Barabbas's rebellion is a reflection of our own against God.

Peter is a foil of Judas because his actions are almost as painful as Judas's betrayal: he vehemently denies knowing his friend, his teacher, his Lord. But whereas Judas feels like Jesus cannot forgive him and eventually takes his own life because of it, overwhelmed with guilt and having nowhere to release it, Peter finds forgiveness and redemption. He is the first disciple to visit the empty tomb. His reconciliation with his friend later in this Gospel is a reflection of the reconciliation we all have with God as a result of Christ's death and resurrection.

Grifter-no-more

2008-06-19T15:50:00.000-07:00

My friend's got a girlfriend
((((and)))) he hates that bitch
He tells me every day
He says "man I really gotta lose my chick
In the worst kind of way"

She sits on her ass
He works his hands to the bone
To give her money every payday
But she wants more dinero just to stay at home
Well my friend
You gotta say:

I won't pay, I won't pay ya, no way
now now Why don't you get a job
Say no way, say no way ya, no way
now now Why don't you get a job

I guess all his money, well it isn't enough
To keep her bill collectors at bay
I guess all his money, well it isn't enough
Cause that girl's got expensive taste

I won't pay, I won't pay ya, no way
now now Why don't you get a job
Say no way, say no way ya, no way
now now Why don't you get a job

Well I guess it ain't easy doing nothing at all oh yeah
But hey man free rides just don't come along
every day

Let me tell you about my other friend now

My friend's got a boyfriend ((((and)))) she hates that dick
She tells me every day
He wants more dinero just to stay at home
Well my friend
You gotta say:

I won't pay, I won't pay ya, no way
now now Why don't you get a job
Say no way, say no way ya, no way
now now Why don't you get a job
oh yeah
I won't give ya no money
I always pay
now now Why don't you get a job
Say no way, say no way ya, no way
now now Why don't you get a
job!

(I'm newly employed, don'tchaknow)

Furthermore

2008-06-14T16:36:00.000-07:00

I made the recovered cherry coke ice crystals into alcohol-filled ICEE's with the magic bullet and some Kahlua. It tastes pretty much like what I expected: ok. But it enrages me when I drink my salvaged Coke smoothie and read on weather.com that a plurality of online voters, (39.4%) do not think that global warming is true.

Frankly, I'm surprised at this. I don't understand how this misconception is out there. I offer my armchair ruminations:

1. Shoddy science reporting. Even though our society is increasingly driven by technology and this technology relies on advances in science, the layperson has a very ill-informed view on science or how the scientific method works. Blame schools all you want, but I'm of the opinion that this is because people have very ill-informed views on just about anything not relating to their narrow experience. I may be really into environmental chemistry and air pollution control and measurement, but I don't know a whole lot about (say) livestock.

I feel like people have this too-perfect view of science. If a man with a white lab coat says it is true, it Must Be So. Furthermore, complicated variables, conflicting data, systematic and random error do not exist- everyone must agree on science. As a corollary, when two scientists disagree, the effect they are researching must not be very scientific. The jury's still out.

But it's not. There is a huge consensus that the Earth is warming. You may blame it on sun spots or random chance or volcanoes, but you don't get to blame it on the Jew-run media anymore.

2. Shoddy political work. Why is this even a political issue? Democrats are more likely to believe in global warming, Republicans are more likely to not believe in it. This might be a nefarious plot by the Republicans to Destroy the Planet, but I'm more apt to quote Upton Sinclair: "If a man's paycheck depends on his not understanding something, you can rely upon his not understanding it." Sorry, oil companies.

Disaster!

2008-06-14T16:27:00.000-07:00

Someone put two cans of Cherry Coke Zero in the freezer where they exploded. I cut my thumb taking one of the cans out, and can only hope that I've brushed out the remaining bits of frozen Coke from on top of the chicken breasts, ice cream, and venison steak.

I hope I don't get tetanus from this.

Back to Politics

2008-05-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

There's this girl that I like. Now it appears that she likes another guy. It must be because he's political and stuff. I bet I could be political, too.

I'm beginning to think, as a Democrat, that having Hillary Clinton in the race is good for the party's chances in the fall. I guess I'm alone in this. The claim is being put forth that Hillary Clinton wants to win so badly that she's willing to go to any length to do it, and if that means salting the Earth so that no Democrat can grow, SO BE IT!

I first disagree with this point just as an accurate narrative of what has happened. Clinton hasn't been that cutthroat. About the only things I can remember that qualify are:

1. Reverend Wright. Was this an incredibly off-base attack that has nothing to do with anything? Yes. Was it damaging to Barack Obama? Maybe. It's strange, but pundits give evidence for this by showing exit polling data. Of those people who didn't vote for Obama, a major reason given was Rev. Wright. But, if you look at the overall trend for Obama, his numbers before and after Wright in terms of popularity and so on were pretty much equal. They went down, sure, but they were already going down before Wright was ever an issue, and they've gone back up since.

In other words: it appears from my armchair analysis that Rev. Wright didn't cause many people to not vote for Obama. Instead, it gave people who were already not going to vote for him a reason for doing this. This fits in well with one understanding of psychology and behavior: we're much more likely to pick a conclusion and build reasons around it, rather than weighing evidence and reaching a conclusion.

2. That commercial where the kid is sleeping and the phone is ringing at the White House. Do you know where your children are!? So it was a silly commercial. Not exactly going for the throat.

3. The One Where Obama Knows That One Guy. Clinton (or someone) said that Obama lived next door to some other guy who did bad things. And also, when he was a lawyer, Obama did some work for a guy who was a radical in the 1970's. Maybe it was the same person? I don't know. But whatever. My point is that it's pretty tame and not very damaging to Obama's chances in November.

Further bolstering my first point that Hillary Clinton hasn't been playing ruthless: if you think she can be mean, just wait for the Republicans and John McCain. Hillary Clinton may say, "Think of the Children!", but John McCain has already said that terrorists want Obama to win. If I'm recalling correctly, it wasn't Hillary Clinton's people who have circulated the rumor that Barack Obama is a Muslim- that would be the crazy right.

So, to conclude my meandering first point: Hillary Clinton isn't salting the Earth. She poses a very small threat for Democrat's chances in November.

My Second Reason Why Hillary Clinton Staying In The Race Isn't As Bad As You Think: it's kind of like altitude training for Obama. We can argue all we want about whether Obama's health care plan covers everyone (it doesn't), or if Hillary's plan will turn us into France (I hope so). But just discussing the issue gets it into everyone's consciousness and frames the debate in a positive manner for Democrats come November. Imagine how completely inadequate John McCain will look by comparison when he says that he wants employers to, uh, group together, or something.

Extend this to any issue you'd like. The longer Barack and Hillary talk about their plans for Iraq, the more that hurts John McCain when he says we should stay there for 100 years and bomb Iran and Palestine and yadda yadda.

So, to conclude:
1. Having Hillary Clinton in the race at the very least poses little threat to Obama's chances in November. She hasn't taken the gloves off (at least not yet), and doesn't seem to be going for the killing blow any time soon.

2. It may actually help the Democrats because it frames issues in a Democratic light.

Of course, this ignores the fact that John McCain is free to do whatever he wants in the meantime before Denver, while Obama is getting pounded. Don't worry. Even if the nomination process goes all the way to Denver, that leaves Obama plenty of time to beat up McCain. Witness Barack schooling him re: Al Qaeda in Iraq. Barack doesn't really start attacks well, but his reaction to them makes his opponent look like an idiot. He's like the anti-Kerry.

John 17 and a Wii

2008-05-10T20:01:00.000-07:00

We just got a Wii, and it is so freaking fun you have no idea. On to John 17.

Jesus Prays for Himself

1After Jesus said this, he looked toward heaven and prayed: "Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, that your Son may glorify you. 2For you granted him authority over all people that he might give eternal life to all those you have given him. 3Now this is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. 4I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do. 5And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world began.

I'd like to note again that this section both 'give[s] eternal life' and also defines what that eternal life consists of. Jesus didn't die on the cross so that we might never die, but in exchange our eternal life consists of reading owner's manuals for all of eternity. It's an eternal life, and a life that consists of things that are worthy of eternity.

I remember being completely freaked out as a kid at the concept of eternity one night. I couldn't sleep at all, the whole night, I just couldn't stop thinking that a consciousness that goes on forever would be a terrible thing. Probably that's because our normal experience is so often filled with pain or suffering or boredom or discomfort or ennui or melancholy that I couldn't imagine anything else. But I'm not asking for an eternal life with 'the only true God, and Jesus Christ' to be non-stop pleasure, either. It gets too saccharine that way. It's more than pleasure, it's the happiness that can only come from finally coming home after a long trip, of being reconciled to a friend, of being at peace with someone you originally hated.

Jesus Prays for His Disciples

6"I have revealed you^[a] to those whom you gave me out of the world. They were yours; you gave them to me and they have obeyed your word. 7Now they know that everything you have given me comes from you. 8For I gave them the words you gave me and they accepted them. They knew with certainty that I came from you, and they believed that you sent me. 9I pray for them. I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours. 10All I have is yours, and all you have is mine. And glory has come to me through them. 11I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name—the name you gave me—so that they may be one as we are one. 12While I was with them, I protected them and kept them safe by that name you gave me. None has been lost except the one doomed to destruction so that Scripture would be fulfilled. 13"I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them. 14I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16They are not of the world, even as I am not of it. 17Sanctify^[b] them by the truth; your word is truth. 18As you sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world. 19For them I sanctify myself, that they too may be truly sanctified.

John 17:17 is often used as support for the proposition that the Bible is divinely inspired and is therefore what we should use for deciding theology, as opposed to, say, popular opinion or the authority of Popes or councils. I never really thought it was all that fair: "the Bible says that the Bible is true" is circular reasoning at its finest. But I've come to a better understanding of this verse in particular as a result of making my way through the earlier parts of John.

It could be the defining message of this entire gospel: the Truth. John recalls Jesus proclaiming himself "The Way, The Truth, and The Life." He says that all those "on the side of Truth listen to me." Pilate will later sneer, "What is Truth?"

And what is it? I think the blind man Jesus healed earlier in the Gospel (chapter 9) sums it up nicely:

24A second time they summoned the man who had been blind. "Give glory to God,^[b]" they said. "We know this man [Jesus] is a sinner."

25He replied, "Whether he is a sinner or not, I don't know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!"

26Then they asked him, "What did he do to you? How did he open your eyes?"

27He answered, "I have told you already and you did not listen. Why do you want to hear it again? Do you want to become his disciples, too?"

28Then they hurled insults at him and said, "You are this fellow's disciple! We are disciples of Moses! 29We know that God spoke to Moses, but as for this fellow, we don't even know where he comes from."

30The man answered, "Now that is remarkable! You don't know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. 31We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly man who does his will. 32Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. 33If this man were not from God, he could do nothing."

34To this they replied, "You were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!" And they threw him out.

The image is pretty remarkable. The self-deception shown by the Pharisees here is incredible- they are truly spiritually blind. Jesus speaks the Truth: he says that he is God, and he is, he says people are sinful, and they are. Jesus explains exactly how the world works, and the world rejects him.

Or look later when Jesus is arrested and smarts off to the High Priest and gets hit in the face. Jesus says, "If I said something wrong, testify as to what is wrong. But if what I said was the truth, why did you hit me?"

That's not really a rhetorical question, you know. The man hit Jesus not because he thought Jesus was lying- he knew that Jesus was telling the truth. Why did he hit him, then? Perhaps he was scared of what would happen to him if he didn't. Perhaps he was simply a cruel person. At rock bottom, he hit Jesus because he preferred his own lies to Jesus' truth, just as Eve preferred the Serpent's lies.

So that passage, "Your word is truth" is a little more meaningful than "the Bible says that the Bible is true". I hope I'm expressing this coherently.

Jesus Prays for All Believers

20"My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, 21that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one: 23I in them and you in me. May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me. 24"Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world. 25"Righteous Father, though the world does not know you, I know you, and they know that you have sent me. 26I have made you known to them, and will continue to make you known in order that the love you have for me may be in them and that I myself may be in them."

A call for unity of purpose throughout the Church that I still long to see. Thy kingdom come, on Earth as it is in Heaven. Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

John 16

2008-04-23T06:57:00.000-07:00

This keeps me writing- good!

After having the Bible study last week, which surprisingly went for about an hour and a half, the main thing we talked about was how to communicate the Gospel with unchurched friends. The biggest barrier to that message, we felt, was apathy, and a denial of the existence of sin. It's hard to get people worked up for salvation from something they don't think exists, or is not important.

Why is it that, when asked to put the teachings of Christianity succinctly, people will say, "Be a good person and you get to go to Heaven"? Why isn't the first thing people say, "Christians believe Jesus was the Son of God and that he died sacrificially so believers in him get to go to Heaven"? Last week a woman asked me if Lutherans thought that Jews would go to Hell and seemed genuinely surprised when I (uncomfortably) said yes. I'm not mad at the woman- it was an honest and important question- but I am a little frustrated in myself and other Christians if the most basic parts of Christianity aren't communicated well.

This also implies that perhaps I don't know much about other world religions. Is the teaching of Islam really obedience to Five Pillars (Charity, going to Mecca on a pilgrimage, obedience to moral teachings, believing that there is one God and Mohammed is His Prophet, and one more)? Has my public education failed me?

Anyway, on to John 16, which begins with some leftovers from last week about persecution. Whoever divided up John screwed up that part, so I'll begin at the fifth verse:

The Work of the Holy Spirit

5"Now I am going to him who sent me, yet none of you asks me, 'Where are you going?' 6Because I have said these things, you are filled with grief. 7But I tell you the truth: It is for your good that I am going away. Unless I go away, the Counselor will not come to you; but if I go, I will send him to you. 8When he comes, he will convict the world of guilt^[a] in regard to sin and righteousness and judgment: 9in regard to sin, because men do not believe in me; 10in regard to righteousness, because I am going to the Father, where you can see me no longer; 11and in regard to judgment, because the prince of this world now stands condemned.

12"I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. 13But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. 14He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and making it known to you. 15All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will take from what is mine and make it known to you.

16"In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me."

So it appears the world is guilty on three charges: sin, righteousness, and judgment. Sin is 'missing the mark' of perfection that God has for us. The world stands guilty of sin because 'men do not believe in [Jesus]', which I take to mean that they cannot even see the target to shoot straight at it. The world stands guilty of not being righteous as well. This is proven by Jesus going to the Father; Jesus is the only righteous person, so his absence from the world highlights the absence of righteousness in the world. How 'not being righteous' is different from 'being sinful' is a little unclear. Does this just mean that we haven't done things that are good, in addition to doing things that are bad?

In any event, Jesus concludes with passing judgment on the world. It's a bit like a courtroom trial: The World has done wrong, it has not done right, and it is condemned as a result of this. The sentence, according to Paul, is physical (and spiritual) death. Good thing Jesus goes on:

The Disciples' Grief Will Turn to Joy

17Some of his disciples said to one another, "What does he mean by saying, 'In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me,' and 'Because I am going to the Father'?" 18They kept asking, "What does he mean by 'a little while'? We don't understand what he is saying."

19Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, "Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, 'In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me'? 20I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. 21A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world. 22So with you: Now is your time of grief, but I will see you again and you will rejoice, and no one will take away your joy. 23In that day you will no longer ask me anything. I tell you the truth, my Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 24Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete.

25"Though I have been speaking figuratively, a time is coming when I will no longer use this kind of language but will tell you plainly about my Father. 26In that day you will ask in my name. I am not saying that I will ask the Father on your behalf. 27No, the Father himself loves you because you have loved me and have believed that I came from God. 28I came from the Father and entered the world; now I am leaving the world and going back to the Father."

29Then Jesus' disciples said, "Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech. 30Now we can see that you know all things and that you do not even need to have anyone ask you questions. This makes us believe that you came from God."

31"You believe at last!"^[b] Jesus answered. 32"But a time is coming, and has come, when you will be scattered, each to his own home. You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.

33"I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world."

Just when this condemnation stuff was getting everyone a little down, Jesus comes back by saying that he has overcome the world. It will look like Jesus has lost-- didn't it look like that on Good Friday and Saturday and the first part of Easter Sunday?-- but this grief will turn to joy. The disciples finally seem to get it: Jesus is the Son of God, he will go away (die), but he will come back (the Resurrection), and this will somehow connect God to people once again. Attaboy, disciples.

One nitpick: the disciples say, "Now you are speaking clearly and without figures of speech." I think that this is one of the more difficult sections to understand, at least compared to other sections of John, where Jesus says stuff like, "Whoever believes in me will never die" or when he physically hands some bread to his betrayer, or when he predicts his death and then says the Son of God must be 'lifted up'. Use any and all to get the message across.

I know that my Redeemer lives. What comfort this sweet sentence gives.

John 15

2008-04-15T14:48:00.000-07:00

On to John 15, perhaps with a nod to something I didn't talk about in John 14 with Jesus being the Way, Truth, and Life.

he Vine and the Branches

1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes^[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. 12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. 17This is my command: Love each other.

I feel like there are so many different definitions of love out there, that the term 'love' has almost become meaningless. Does love mean never having to say you're sorry? Is it as simple as just enjoying being around a person a lot? Maybe it's how multiple people can join forces to form something that none of them could ever be without the others. Is it giving of yourself without expecting anything in return? I'm more convinced that Jesus is talking about the latter. This is not a mushy kind of love, the kind that tells you your poetry is the best ever or that your song sounded swell. It's the kind of love that pushes you out of the way of a speeding bus. It's the kind that sternly says to go outside. Amy Adams has no place in this love.

One other motif on this section is bearing fruit: you're supposed to get something out of this Christianity thing. There's supposed to be a change in behavior. This is not an obligation, simply a description of the process. The things that I do come as a response to Christ's love, not as a payment for it. This fruit section has in it the seeds of some of the biggest divisions in Christianity. Surely, some would argue, if Jesus says that good branches and bad branches can be operationally identified by their fruit, Christians can be operationally identified by their good actions. Therefore, the good actions are what some would have you focus on. This is a mistake. Fruit is the proof of a good vine, an outside proxy that is easy to measure when you cannot look inside the vine itself. The vine should be the focal point.

The World Hates the Disciples

18"If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20Remember the words I spoke to you: 'No servant is greater than his master.'^[b] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the One who sent me. 22If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin. Now, however, they have no excuse for their sin. 23He who hates me hates my Father as well. 24If I had not done among them what no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. But now they have seen these miracles, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: 'They hated me without reason.'^[c]

26"When the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father, he will testify about me. 27And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.

Not a super-cheery section, either. Jesus is saying to expect persecution in his name. This brings up a point discussed in a Bible study between services on Sunday about Truth. It's very chic and postmodern to deny the existence of truth. We could all be brains in jars, man. Perception is reality. This went over into a discussion of persecution that people face when they try to say that there is real religious truth: Jesus Christ. And what persecution did people list? Would it be the martyrs of the faith? The men and women around the world who are killed for their faith? No. It's being greeted at Wal-mart with a 'happy holidays' instead of 'merry Christmas'. It's those nasty Democrats who want to take In God We Trust off our money.

Sidenote: How completely ticked will Jesus be when he comes back and finds God written on our money and not on our hearts? What was the point of him driving out moneychangers from the temple again?

If I go through life as a Christian, and the only persecution I have to deal with is people in class thinking I'm a moron for believing in Creationism, I'll consider myself incredibly lucky.

One last thought on this section is Jesus saying how people have no excuse for not knowing that he was the son of God. No one gets to go before God on Judgment Day and say they never knew they were breaking any rules. No one gets to say that it's not fair. In fact, Jesus is being more charitable than he has the need to be. That's what grace is.

John 14

2008-04-06T19:50:00.000-07:00

I've been leading a Bible Study this semester on the Gospel of St. John, and as a little writing exercise, I'd like to go through this kinda chapter by chapter, with my thoughts. Who knows? If I keep this blog for five years, I could do the whole new testament. Or at least the Gospels.

As we've been going through this week by week, I've come to remember why I like reading John more than any other book of the Bible: it reads as narrative and theological lesson. These are stories with characters, irony, purpose, as well as actual flesh and blood historical people. John does an excellent job of always showing Jesus as both Man and God, and the story as both History and Theological Study. Take Jesus weeping in John 11: a simple act that plays as history (it isn't hard to imagine a real flesh and blood guy named Jesus crying at his friend's funeral) and teaching (Jesus is true man that he should cry, Jesus must love us if he cries when his friend dies, Jesus never intended for us to die).

A little exposition for John 14: this is during Holy Week. Jesus has just come into Jerusalem, he's instituted the Lord's Supper, he's sent his betrayer packing, and he's predicted Peter's disowning him. This after Peter says, "Lord, I will lay down my life for you!" Exactly the opposite proves true. So this takes place in the upper room, still.

John 14

Jesus Comforts His Disciples

1"Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. 2In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. 3And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am. 4You know the way to the place where I am going."

A very comforting section. Christ often says, "Don't be afraid!" Sometimes everyone questions whether they are Christian enough- how could God save me, I try to be a Christian and I suck at it! Let there be no doubt as to the power of God's grace.

Jesus the Way to the Father

5Thomas said to him, "Lord, we don't know where you are going, so how can we know the way?"

6Jesus answered, "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. 7If you really knew me, you would know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him."

8Philip said, "Lord, show us the Father and that will be enough for us."

9Jesus answered: "Don't you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, 'Show us the Father'? 10Don't you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

In this section, John again hammers home a lesson found throughout his Gospel: the Disciples were pretty dumb. They didn't get this stuff. They didn't understand it. Even after Jesus tells them to not be afraid, they'll scatter latter in the evening and hide behind locked doors.

Before it was called Christianity, some people called the new religion The Way. In contrast to an empty ceremonial ritual (spin in a circle three times, hop on one foot, and your sins are forgiven), men weren't given a method; they were given a man. Jesus is the conduit through which we see God, and through which we are put at peace with God. Nothing we do (not even very very nice things we do) can do the same. This is a statement of the exclusivity of Jesus Christ.

It reminds me of just a few chapters ago, John 10, where Jesus describes himself as both Good Shepard and gate: "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved." Not only is he the one we need to be reconciled to, he is also the mechanism of that reconciliation. It's a hard metaphor to explain, and perhaps Jesus is mixing metaphors here.

Jesus Promises the Holy Spirit

15"If you love me, you will obey what I command. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever— 17the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. 18I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 19Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. 21Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and show myself to him."

22Then Judas (not Judas Iscariot) said, "But, Lord, why do you intend to show yourself to us and not to the world?"

23Jesus replied, "If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him. 24He who does not love me will not obey my teaching. These words you hear are not my own; they belong to the Father who sent me.

25"All this I have spoken while still with you. 26But the Counselor, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you. 27Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

28"You heard me say, 'I am going away and I am coming back to you.' If you loved me, you would be glad that I am going to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. 29I have told you now before it happens, so that when it does happen you will believe. 30I will not speak with you much longer, for the prince of this world is coming. He has no hold on me, 31but the world must learn that I love the Father and that I do exactly what my Father has commanded me.
"Come now; let us leave.

Jesus sometimes does this in John: someone will ask him something, and it's like he doesn't really answer the question. I read the question as, "What do you mean we'll be able to see you but others won't? Why not have everyone see you? That way, no one can deny that you don't exist, Richard Dawkins will be out of a job, and everything will be grand."

Jesus seems to say that he's not talking about "that kind of seeing". We will "see" Christ in the actions and faith of people around us; it won't be like Jesus doing a concert at Shea Stadium so we can go or watch it on TV. It's a bit like how we see bits of other people in ourselves- I grimace and kind of stick my tongue out just like my dad does when we try to open pickle jars. I spell out my last name the same way my mother does, even though it's a really common one. I even say "dogs will be dogs" because my friends do.

If you have never met my father, and you have never seen him battle pickle jars, you wouldn't see him in me. If you don't know who Jesus is, you won't see him in others. So that's how I read that. I know it's kinda cheating when Jesus says stuff about swords and kingdoms and temples and rocks and it's all metaphorical. It's not the answer we want, but it's the answer we'll get.

This other bit about the Holy Spirit is important, too. The Holy Spirit isn't just some relic of the past that taught St. Peter and St. Paul all they knew. The Holy Spirit was present at my baptism, at my confirmation. The Holy Spirit is with us whenever we study God's Word. Whenever Jesus promises the Holy Spirit, he doesn't give an expiration date. Jesus doesn't say, "I'm sending the Holy Spirit to you guys on Pentecost, you'll speak in lots of different languages and it'll be cool, but THAT'S IT. ONE TIME DEAL."

This chapter also contains the central message of Christianity and Easter: Because I live, you also will live.

Agnsty McAgnstPants

2008-03-08T14:01:00.000-08:00

I hate Jack Johnson. I hate that I hate Jack Johnson.

I hate my peers' popular culture. I hate that I hate my peers' popular culture. An aspect of said culture is that you are required to hate anything that other people like or enjoy, including hating on other people.

When other people say that television is shallow, I don't think they mean what I do. They're just saying that to impress the chicks. Or themselves. I am immune from all self-flattery. Or irony.

When other people say that empty sexuality is used like an electrode in your head to make you buy products from The Man on the basest of all levels, they don't mean it like I mean it. Do frat boys hate frat boy culture? I'm convinced they hate it more than anyone else.

Everyone wants to feel connected to others. Everyone wants to feel unique. Everyone wants to feel connected to other unique people and have that not be ironic or self-referential or oxymoronic.

I just want to feel connected to people who see that.

Kyle Klubertanz

2008-02-15T23:40:00.000-08:00

What a horrible game all around. Ugh.

Recent Political Thoughts

2008-01-08T09:28:00.000-08:00

Politics have been heating up recently, with Iowa's caucuses over and New Hampshire's primary today. I'd like to weigh in on each of the candidates.

The Democrats

Obama
Fresh off his win in Iowa, he'll probably take New Hampshire as well. I haven't really been a fan of Obama because his health plan doesn't cover all Americans, and his attacks of other's plans has been from the right. Not only is this a bit against the interests of the Democratic Party (Dems get criticized enough by the Republicans, no use adding to it), but it also opens Obama up to attack should he ever win the nomination. "If forcing people to purchase health insurance is bad, Barack, why do you support Socialized Medicine?"

Edwards
He lost in Iowa when he really needed to win it. He's been a little slick in attributing support for Obama as support for "change" and hence a support for himself. I think he wants to be vice president really badly. His worst moment was at the NH debate when he was asked what was the best thing he had accomplished in the Senate. He said the Patient's Bill of Rights. Which passed the Senate, got stuck in the House, and wasn't signed into law.

Hillary Clinton
I've begun to warm to Hillary Clinton. I find her rhetoric convincing regarding change. Obama says he represents a new take on Washington, that he is Change and Hope incarnate. I've heard that before from a man who wanted to "change the culture of Washington" and be a "uniter, not a divider." Bill Clinton ran on the same message, everyone runs on that message. Perhaps the only person ever to run as a Washington Outsider that actually WAS one was Jimmy Carter, a President I have enormous respect for, but also one widely considered a weak and ineffectual leader because he alienated the Washington establishment and couldn't get stuff through.

This is not to say that an Outsider would be weak now. The standoff between congressional Democrats and Carter has been resolved by changes in the party and nation: the Dems have mostly eliminated the Dixiecrats from within their ranks. However, the other things hurting Carter, OPEC and stagflation, could just be getting in gear.

Clinton makes the argument that she can work within the system, using those patented Clintonian smarts, to at least get SOMETHING through. To get his agenda past congress, Obama plans to use his ability as a uniter. Unless Republicans get significantly less pig-headed, that won't work.

***
The Republicans

Mike Huckabee
He plays the guitar and has a hamburger named after him. Surely those are good qualifications to be President, right? Maybe. He's made an effort to portray himself as a compassionate conservative, and I find him more convincing than Bush in that respect. It always seemed a convenient way to get votes for Bush, but surely Huckabee means what he says.

As for his policies, I'm sure to disagree with most of them as I'm more liberal than he is. I like his stance on immigration, but his tax reform is really really scary. The Fair Tax is not fair at all. Any way you want to slice it, people making more than $200,000 a year will pay less in taxes. That means to be revenue-neutral, that money has to be made up somewhere. That means the middle class.

Mitt Romney
Why he would run away from his Moderate Republican past that got pretty good results, I don't know. "A man with executive experience and business experience who looks beyond ideology to get results" works for me, but it doesn't work for Republican primary voters, I guess. If he wins the nomination, he'll tack back to the center, and eventually we'll have an overeager candidate who states, "Those are my principles. If you don't like them, I have others."

Rudy
Thank goodness this guy has fallen off! You can't ride September 11 forever. If you thought Bush was autocratic, caustic, unwilling to compromise, secretive, and in love with military force, you'll love Rudy.

Ron Paul
I was initially attracted to Ron Paul. He had the guts to criticize Republicans over the war in Iraq, and talked so fiercely about balancing the budget that I thought he just might do it.

Of course, those traits have become cartoonishly distorted, now. Not only does he want us out of Iraq (good!), he wants us out of Saudi Arabia, Germany, South Korea, and everywhere (ummmm). Not only does he want to balance the budget (yes!), he wants to do it by slashing military spending (cool!) and basically all spending everywhere (not cool).

Add in his absolutely goofy statements about race, civil war revisionism, property rights, and private discrimination, you have a frightening man.

McCain
I've always been suspicious of McCain, because he has this habit of being known as a Maverick, but when he votes, it's really conservative. That said, I think he'd be a little less bad a President than Romney or Rudy. He's staged a bit of a comeback, which is cool. His stance on immigration is practical. He still supports the war, though, and that's too bad. But I haven't heard anything about the war for a while, which makes me think it's going better. Still, there is nothing to change my fears that Iraq is not worth what we put into it.

Fred Thompson is a joke. Richardson has been bad in debates. Did I miss anyone?

Random Mutterings on Liberty

2008-01-07T10:35:00.000-08:00

Elsewhere, I've discussed my problems with J.S. Mill's views regarding the interaction between the state and personal liberty. I'd like to use this first post to crystallize these thoughts and to articulate a positive vision.

As I have a habit both in written and oral debate of being tangential and nonspecific, I'd like to limit this treatment only to my problems with J.S. Mill's "harm principle."

Let's get to some definitions. Mill's harm principle is stated thus:

"...the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self-protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because, in the opinion of others, to do so would be wise, or even right...The only part of the conduct of anyone, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign."

I feel that this principle is based on a faulty premise: that adults who have the ability and the will to act in their own self-interest will do so.

Take note that I do not at this time seek to squabble over the definition of self-interest. I argue that individuals will knowingly take actions against their own self-interest.

These actions can be taken for good or bad ends. We call the good ones, 'altruism'. We call the bad ones, 'self-destruction'. Some quick examples of altruism: the impulse of a soldier to fall on a grenade to save the lives of her comrades, or the donation of time and money to a charity that feeds children a continent away.

Some people would argue that altruism doesn't exist, that what you give (your life, time, or money) is equaled by what you gain (the knowledge and pleasure that you've done something noble or meaningful). Those people are poopheads.

What about actions taken against ones' own self-interest that do not benefit society either? One example would be hard drug use. People know that it is not in their self-interest to do drugs- they are very destructive to one's health and wellbeing- yet they do them anyway. Despair, depression, alcoholism, self-abuse are other examples.

Let's resist another false argument similar to the altruism-denial above: that people feel that the initial benefit of their actions outweigh or equal the later incredibly harsh consequences. Self-mutilation can be a form of taking control when an individual feels they have none, but I've always felt Dostoevsky's notion of a "laceration" in The Brothers Karamazov was as accurate an explanation as any.

Acting against ones' own self-interest and to the detriment of society is, ultimately, a product of sin. People are not the rational actors Mill supposes them to be: they are morally flawed. In the words of St. Paul, "I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do."

At the risk of getting a little unfocused, I'd like to take issue with the following idea, "Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign." Hopefully, this will help me articulate a positive vision, rather than nitpick another's.

This isn't true, of course. Some scriptural evidence, again from Paul: "Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body."

So, argument one: Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is NOT sovereign, but rather subject to God.

Here comes argument two: The government is a legitimate tool of God's Will.

For the scriptural evidence of this, I again turn to Paul:

"Everyone must submit himself to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God. Consequently, he who rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves. For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and he will commend you. For he 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. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also because of conscience. This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God's servants, who give their full time to governing. Give everyone what you owe him: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor."

If you think I'm overloading on St. Paul today, I can direct you to the old testament prophets Jonah and Daniel. The Babylonian captivity is another example of God working through states. Jesus also says that we should, "give unto Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's."

I include this quote from Christ as a defense against what I imagine will be a popular criticism: this is the ultimate form of state oppression! How do we functionally decide which claims over our bodies the government can rightfully preside over, and which ones are our own choice? As this is the central question that "On Liberty" purports to answer, it would seem that we haven't made much progress at all.

Jesus' answer gives a good directive: the government cannot have authority over one's religious duty to God. Stated succinctly elsewhere:

"Having brought the apostles, they made them appear before the Sanhedrin to be questioned by the high priest. 'We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name,' he said. 'Yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man's blood.'

Peter and the other apostles replied: 'We must obey God rather than men!'"

So there's that. If you follow some thinkers of the Enlightenment (our Founding Fathers among them), the government can morally be rebelled against when they have violated "inalienable rights" that their Creator has given them. These rights are an extension of those religious ones shown above. In most cases, they are legitimate extensions, though I'm stopping short of saying that God made our Constitution or that the LORD wants you to have an AK-47. According to our Declaration of Independence, "that among these rights are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." We've even gone so far as to codify these rights in our Bill of Rights. Note that none of them include the right to commit suicide, nor the right to self-destructive behavior.

In fact, a responsible government must prohibit these activities, if it is to "promote the general welfare". It's a matter of public health.

I have more to say later on Government and vaccinations, seatbelts, the environment, and other stuff, but I'll leave my criticism here. Pretty long for a first post.