Lately I have been in a creative phase where I have enjoyed making boutique jams. I have make thirty seven jars of Black-raspberry, chokecherry, wild grape, wild grape – chokecherry, or crab-apple rhubarb at various times over the summer and fall. Recently I was visiting my parents home about an hour away. I noticed that their crab-apple tree was laden with fruit, and immediately my thoughts went to trying to make crab-apple jam or jelly. Also visiting was a relative, Nigel Paul, the founder of MoveIn.To, a “movement of regular Christians prayerfully moving in among the unreached, urban poor.” I suggested that I was interested in picking the crab apples, and Nigel volunteered to help.
As we spent the next hour picking the crab-apples, we chatted away on numerous topics, including some of Nigel’s immediate and longer term plans. I walked away from our conversation thinking – Nigel is one of the reasons why part of me has never left the Evangelical world.
Ten years ago, Nigel had a vision to “Move-In”. To intentionally live simply in a poor neighborhood in order to be salt and light to those around him. Nigel spread the word about what he was doing, and encouraged others to join him. The idea was that people who were students, or working regular jobs, or retired, would intentionally move into communities where they could make a difference. This would not be an expensive proposition. People would be doing what they would normally doing in their academic or work lives, but they would be intentional about where they lived.
And join they did, in less than ten years there are now 400 move-iners across 37 cities and 14 countries. Much of his family has gotten involved, for example, his sisters have moved with their spouses to a slum in Indonesia, where they are providing an education to the neighborhood children.
Nigel himself chose to live in a large apartment complex holding about 5000 people, many of them new immigrants to Canada. He, and his fiancee at the time Jessie, invited every one of them to their wedding, followed by a pot luck dinner to be held on the front lawn of the apartment. About 1000 friends and neigbors took them up on the offer.
In my own city I see similar examples to this, my own heroes of the faith, so to speak.
I see Dwayne C. organizing sports programs for inner city youth, and creating and delivering Christmas gift baskets to the needy.
I see Alison W. setting up a home where new refugees can stay until they get established.
I see Greg R. facilitating churches working together to meed the needs of those around them.
I see Chris W. encouraging youth to make a difference in people’s lives.
I see Don C. heading up a “reading and running” program in the elementary schools.
I see Al and Karen C. establishing training and counseling programs for homeless youth.
I see other friends reaching out, and helping out across the country and around the world.
Many of my friends think differently to me. Theologically I may not fit in. But we all share a love for the same God, and trust in his son Jesus. That binds us together with a cord that is not easily broken.
I will leave you with one final thought.
Last year Nigel and Jessie tried something new. Knowing that many of the poor in the world have just one dollar a day to spend on food they decided that they would take one week a year where they did the same. The money they saved from their regular budget that week they would donate to ministries that work with the poor. It can be a challenge, as Nigel and Jessie found, when the chicken carcasses they bought for $1.50 and planned to use as part of three meals, were in fact rotten. It gave them a sense of what it means to be truly poor, when something like happens, and you have no alternatives, you go hungry.
Again they are encouraging others to join them. They are at the end of their week for this year, but if others wanted to join for a later week I am sure they would welcome them. They can be found at dollaraday.global.
As always, your thoughts and comments are welcome.
Oh, and the crab-apple rhubarb jam? It turned out great!
We are reviewing the book, “Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship” by John Polkinghorne. Today we will look at the second part of Chapter 3- Lessons from History. John continues his comparative study of science and Christian theology with some additional historical examples of how the discovery of further truth proceeds in these two disciplines. Last time we looked at: (1) Growing recognition of deeper significance. This week we look at:
(2) Collateral developments. Further examples considered. The search for understanding requires the development of a portfolio of inter-connected concepts to do justice to the richness of experience.
(a) Waves. The waves that people first thought about were directly perceptible phenomena, such as the waves of the sea and sound waves induced by vibrating strings. In these examples it was clear that an oscillating material medium served as the carrier of waves.
Therefore when James Clerk Maxwell proposed, based on electromagnetic theory, that light was made up of waves, it was natural to suppose that there was some material substrate serving as the medium to carry those waves. Hence the famous theory of luminiferous aether or ether. Contemporary physicists like Lord Kelvin and Maxwell himself puzzled over the supposed strange combination of properties. The Michelson-Morley experiment in 1887, designed to measure the velocity of the Earth through the aether, yielded a null result.
In 1905, Albert Einstein cut the Gordian knot by his discovery of special relativity, which promptly resulted in a way of thinking that abolished the need for an aether altogether. Electromagnetic waves were recognized to be just that. It was the energy present in the electromagnetic fields themselves that did the waving.
In 1926, when the Schrodinger equation was formulated as a new king of wave equation, the question once more arose, waves of what? The initial inclination was to suggest waves of matter, but it soon became clear that this would imply so diffuse an account of the electron that it would not be compatible with its localization when it was actually experimentally observed.
It was Max Born who found the answer. The Schrodinger waves are waves of probability, and the corresponding wave function is a representation of the potentialities present in the unpicturable quantum state associated with the electron. Polkinghorne says:
This brief history of the wave idea shows both how indispensable a concept it was in theoretical physics and also how its realistic interpretation moved on from a naïve objectivity to a much more subtle account, without at any time ceasing to function as a means for describing the way in which the physical world was found actually to behave.
Holy Spirit Outpouring by Deborah Brown Mahler
(b) Spirit. Polkinghorne thinks a somewhat similar history can be traced in the case of the theological idea of spirit. In Genesis 1:2 the Spirit of God hovers over the waters of chaos, or, as can be alternately translated a wind from God is blowing over the water. There are promises of God pouring out his Spirit as in Joel 2:28-29 and the focused bestowal on the Messiah, the one anointed by God as in Isaiah 61:1. Spirit in the OT is often conceived of as a gift of power for a specific purpose like Bezalel and Oholiab empowered to construct the ark and the tent of meeting in Exodus 31:1-11. In the preaching of John the Baptist a new idea was put forth of one who would baptize/immerse with the Holy Spirit (Mark 1:7-8), which the early Church identified Jesus as the fulfillment of this prophecy. In Acts 1:8 the Holy Spirit bestows the power needed for bold witness to Christ. In the foundational event of Pentecost, it is the risen and exalted Jesus who pours out the Spirit (Acts 2:33). In Paul’s writings, the gifts bestowed by the Spirit are diverse and distributed to different believers for different purposes (1 Cor. 12:4-11), but they also yield the single fruit of a Christ-like life (Gal. 5:22-23). In one verse, Romans 8:9, Paul speaks of the Spirit, the Spirit of God, and the Spirit of Christ. In the gospel of John 16:7-8, Jesus both promises to send the Advocate/Paraclete and also says the Father will send the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ name. John says:
Everything is not sorted out neatly in the New Testament, but it is clear that mostly its witness to the Spirit is framed in personal terms. It took the Church some time to work out how to think about all this. It was not until the fourth century that the concept of the Holy Spirit as divine, and as being the Third Person of the Trinity, finally emerged with a settled clarity and definiteness in the understanding of the church. Once again one sees movement from a comparatively naïve reification (an extra ingredient given to Bezalel) to a profoundly subtle account of a deep and unexpected reality.
Today we continue our series of reflections on Rowan Williams’s book,Being Christian: Baptism, Bible, Eucharist, Prayer, turning to the third big theme of the practice of being Christian — the sacrament celebrating how God welcomes us to his table: the Eucharist.
For Christians, to share in the Eucharist, the Holy Communion, means to live as people who know that they are always guests – that they have been welcomed and that they are wanted. It is, perhaps, the most simple thing that we can say about Holy Communion, yet it is still supremely worth saying. In Holy Communion, Jesus Christ tells us that he wants our company. (p. 41)
I have become convinced that celebrating the Lord’s Table is essential to Christian worship. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that much which is called “worship” in churches is, in fact, sub-Christian because it is not adequately centered in the gospel.
The traditional liturgy of the Western Church revolves around two gospel poles: the word of the gospel preached, and the sacrament of the gospel partaken in the rite of communion. Both of these center the attention of the congregation upon Christ. Both are received, emphasizing that our life together comes to us by God’s grace. The two acts build upon one another:
The word of the gospel proclaims God’s gracious welcome in Christ.
Then, in communion we are invited to come to the table and be fed.
The word of the gospel calls us to put our trust in Christ.
Then, in communion we hold out our empty hands to receive Christ.
Therefore, as Rowan Williams emphasizes, the Eucharist is the practice that emphasizes hospitality. He points to the story of Zaccheus to show that this hospitality begins with God’s welcome, but then grows in ever-expanding circles.
In other words Jesus is not only someone who exercises hospitality; he draws out hospitality from others. By his welcome he makes other people capable of welcoming. And that wonderful alternation in the Gospels between Jesus giving hospitality and receiving hospitality shows us something absolutely essential about the Eucharist. We are the guests of Jesus. We are there because he asks us, and because he wants our company. At the same time we are set free to invite Jesus into our lives and literally to receive him into our bodies in the Eucharist. His welcome gives us the courage to open up to him. And so the flow of giving and receiving, of welcome and acceptance, moves backwards and forwards without a break. We are welcomed and we welcome; we welcome God and we welcome our unexpected neighbours. (pp. 42-43)
Monday was a long day on the road and at the ballgame for me (and thus apologies for the long delay in approving system-moderated comments). At any rate, getting home late prevented me from putting a full-blown post together, so I’ll turn it over to you folks today.
Note from CM: When Michael Spencer discovered he had cancer, I made a deal with him. We set a goal — to try and go to a Cincinnati Reds baseball game in the spring. Sadly, the weekend I had set aside to go ended up being the weekend of his funeral. Michael died on April 5,2010, the day after Easter. At his memorial service, the pastor said he thought the iMonk might pass on Easter Sunday, and how fitting that would have been. After the service, I approached him and said, “Pastor, you know why he waited until Monday, don’t you? Monday was Opening Day, the Reds’ first game. Michael couldn’t go to heaven without one more baseball game.”
Apart from the grace of Jesus and the love of my family, few things have brought me more joy than the game of baseball. Today I will be in Chicago, watching the playoff game between the Cubs and the Milwaukee Brewers to decide the NL Central Division Championship. This essay was originally penned in 1996. Amazingly, the Cubs have won a World Series in the time since then. It may be too much to hope for this year, but I’ll be in my seat today, cheering them on.
• • •
Another Look: Take Me Out
One day this summer, I had the rarest of treats: a free evening. The kids were off staying with family or friends. Gail had an outing with some of her women chums from church. I was free! What would you do? I took in a baseball game.
Here in Indianapolis, we have a magnificent downtown stadium where our Triple-A team, the Indians, plays. Victory Field offers the best view of the downtown skyline available. It is one of those “new-old” stadiums that came into vogue after the Baltimore Orioles built Camden Yards — with outdoor concourses, seats close to the field, real grass, nostalgic decorations, along with modern conveniences, comfortable seats, easy access to concessions and services. The “bleachers” behind the outfield walls aren’t seats at all, but rather banks of grass where families can bring picnics and enjoy the game. There is an open, airy, satisfying feel about it all.
On this day, I arrived early, during batting practice, and discovered, to my delight, that one could stand in the outfield picnic area and retrieve balls hit over the wall. Only few kids were chasing them down, so I joined in and soon had my first-ever souvenir from a professional ball game. I stuck the ball in my pocket and schemed how to get some autographs for my son.
Next step was to buy a drink and a Baseball Weekly, take my seat in the upper deck along third base, stretch out and relax. There in the soft breeze, beneath late afternoon fair skies, I breathed deeply and scanned the paper while listening to some of the most wonderful sounds in the world — crack of Louisville Slugger on horsehide, smack of well-thrown ball in the mitt, banter of the boys of summer around the infield and batting cage.
I had forgotten how much I missed those sounds. A pretty fair pitcher when I was a kid, I quit after high school. It seemed right then, but occasionally, it’s a decision I regret.
In season at least, baseball was my life. Once, a teacher gave our class the assignment of making a collage depicting various facets of our lives. She made the mistake of assigning this project in March, just as spring practice was commencing. My collage consisted of dozens and dozens of baseball pictures, period. “Is that all there is to your life?” she exclaimed. Yep.
My folks tell of the time I was a tot, dressed in my Cubs uniform at the airport. I caused a large African-American cleaning lady laughing fits by proclaiming to her that I was Ernie Banks, the Cubs’ great black ballplayer.
I can still see the backyard lots in Galesburg, Illinois where I played (every day?). I lied to my parents and told them my watch stopped when they upbraided me for being late for supper. The Cubs once reached the lofty height of fifth place in the N.L. standings, and I can still hear Jimmy Sandberg screaming with joy as he ran over to our house with the paper in his hands to show me. Two of the older guys down the street had daily fast-pitch wiffleball games in their driveway, Yankees vs. Dodgers.
When we moved to the Chicago suburbs, the high mounds of dirt nearby from constructing our subdivision formed perfect stadiums for hard ball games. Driveways served as home run derby arenas for wiffleball warriors. The court on which we lived, sloping down to the next street, provided my dad with plenty of exercise as he chased my errant pitches when we played catch.
I played organized ball every year except for the summer between seventh and eighth grades, when exploding hormones made other things seem more important, like laying around the pool to talk with intriguing female creatures I’d never noticed before. But that was merely an aberration, a blip on the screen. Nothing, not even sex, could ultimately usurp the place of baseball.
Jason Heyward, Chi Cubs (2018)
And here I was, with an evening free. Take me out to the ballgame! All in all, it was a remarkably refreshing experience. I spent about five hours there alone in the crowd. The night stayed clear. Autographs were secured, hot dogs and nachos consumed. Pretty good pitching, a few close plays, a couple of home runs-our team won. I remembered again why I love baseball so much.
A few weeks earlier, I had taken my two sons, ages 8 and 5, to another Indians game. It was their annual baseball clinic night. They enlist coaches and players to give demonstrations of proper pitching, hitting and fielding techniques, then they invite the children to come down on the field where they get to run through some simple drills with their instructors. What I would have given for the chance to go down on a field like that when I was a kid!
I sent the boys down. Jesse, the older one, went out to the outfield to catch some flies. Isaac, who has not even started playing organized ball yet, went with him. I noticed some parents had joined their kids to help guide them around the stations, so I ambled down the steps, through the gate, and onto Victory Field.
Slowly I wandered up the baseline, looked around, and tried to take in my surroundings. A profound wave of longing and something like grief poured over and through me. For a moment I was stunned. I regained my bearings somehow and, finding Isaac, I led him to the infield and encouraged him to take some grounders from Don Buford, a player I had watched and rooted for as a kid in Baltimore. I shook his hand, thanked him for helping my son and told him of my youthful loyalty to his team. Pointing to one of the young Indians’ players, he said, “These kids don’t even believe I ever played ball.”
You did, Don. I was there.
Next day, the boys’ pictures were in the Indianapolis paper. A photographer had caught them while waiting to go on the field. He captured their personalities perfectly and provided me with a lasting reminder of not only my boys but also a deep part of my own life. Two kids in baseball caps, one with the bill half-chewed by the dog, gum filling their cheeks, chins resting on their mitts. It coulda been me. It was me. Now it was them. Genes don’t lie.
I stayed until the last out. Then, down the stairs, slowly around the concourse, through the gate. Eight or nine thousand other pilgrims and me, on our way home. A rare free evening well-spent.
Ernie, it was beautiful enough; we shoulda played two today.
Buy me some peanuts and Cracker Jack
I don’t care if I ever get back!
…Ruth said,
‘Do not press me to leave you
or to turn back from following you!
Where you go, I will go;
where you lodge, I will lodge;
your people shall be my people,
and your God my God.
Where you die, I will die—
there will I be buried.
May the Lord do thus and so to me,
and more as well,
if even death parts me from you!’
• Ruth 1:16-17
• • •
You may never have heard of a couple named Robertson and Muriel McQuilkin, but theirs is one of the great love stories of my lifetime.
Dr. Robertson McQuilkin was a respected Bible teacher, author, and missionary leader. When I was in college, he was president of Columbia Bible College in South Carolina. During the 1980s his wife Muriel began showing signs that her memory was deteriorating. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease, but continued to try and live as normally as possible.
Gradually, Muriel began losing her life. She had to give up the radio program she had. Then she had to give up speaking and all forms of public ministry. She tried to stay involved in the life of the college and continue counseling the students who came to her, but soon she couldn’t do that. Even the letters she wrote to her children were becoming incomprehensible. In 1990, McQuilkin described her condition as “a slow dying for me to watch the vibrant, creative, articulate person I knew and loved gradually dimming out.’
That year at age 57, Dr. McQuilkin approached the board of the college and told them they should search for his successor. If Muriel were to need him full-time, he planned to step down. But it was a struggle for the college president. He had devoted his life to Christian service and his ministry was now at its height, with an impact all around the world. What was even harder was for him to hear his colleagues remind him of that. They thought he should arrange for care Muriel so that he could continue to serve Christ and his Kingdom. After all, did not Jesus say that sometimes we must leave our loved ones to follow him? Against this counsel, Robertson McQuilkin resigned from Columbia in 1990 to care for his dear wife Muriel.
About this decision he said, “When the time came, the decision was firm. It took no great calculation. It was a matter of integrity. Had I not promised, 42 years before, “in sickness and in health . . . till death do us part”?
Besides, McQuilkin said,“She is such a delight to me. I don’t have to care for her, I get to.”
That, my friends, is extraordinary love.
There is a word in Hebrew that is one of the most important words in the Book of Ruth. It is the word “hesed.” In your Bible it is sometimes translated “love,” or “grace,” or “mercy,” or “kindness,” or “lovingkindness.” Some of the newer versions use the phrase “steadfast love” or “covenant love” to translated it. I would vote for “hesed” as the greatest single word in the Hebrew Bible. It describes God’s committed, everlasting love for us, and it describes the extraordinary love that people can show each other with God’s help.
In Ruth, it is primarily the human expression of this committed love, particularly on the part of Ruth and Boaz, that is emphasized. These ordinary people show extraordinary love, and by doing so, they rescue Naomi and her family from a desperate situation.
The famous text I read from Ruth 1:16-17 is her expression of the determination she has to stay with Naomi, to help her in times of trouble, to never leave her or forsake her. This text is often used in wedding ceremonies to describe the importance of lifetime promises, but in this situation it is spoken by a young woman willing to give up everything to help a family member in need.
Let me read it again:
…Ruth said,
‘Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die, I will die— there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!’
Do you remember the background? Naomi and her husband had gone to Moab in time of famine with their two sons. The sons married Moabite women — Ruth and Orpah. The husband and two sons died, leaving Naomi with her two daughters-in-law. When Naomi heard that God had once again blessed Israel with a harvest, she decided to return. She argued that it would be better for the younger women to stay in Moab and find a new life there. That would be the prudent and sensible thing for them. Orpah was finally convinced and she went back to her childhood home to try and resume her life. But Ruth refused, casting her lot in with Naomi.
Because Ruth is the hero of this story, we sometimes criticize Orpah for turning back. I don’t think she deserves that. She did the sensible, responsible thing. She showed respect for her mother-in-law’s wisdom and counsel, just as she had shown faithful loyalty to Naomi for many years. She did the right thing, the expected thing, and in context a rather wise thing.
However, when Naomi urged Ruth to do the same, she put her foot down. No way! she said. I’m sticking with you, no matter what happens!
If Orpah takes the expected action, Ruth clearly insists on taking the unexpected way. If Orpah represents the ordinary course of wisdom, Ruth exemplifies something extraordinary. If Orpah’s decision is perfectly understandable, Ruth’s is unimaginable. Risking everything, she casts her lot in with Naomi.
Some have said that Ruth’s faith here surpasses even that of Abraham, the father of our faith. When God called Abraham he gave him a promise and every time Abraham took a new step, he did so on the basis of God’s clear word.
In contrast, Ruth’s future was entirely uncertain — she had no husband, no possessions, no prospects, and no divine promises to hang on to. She was leaving her home and all that had been natural to her. She chose to go live in a community that was not only foreign but also extremely prejudiced against her people. There was no guarantee she would find welcome and every chance she would be marginalized. The only friend she had to accompany her was a sad, bitter, and defeated older woman, and Ruth was not only going to have to try and make a life for herself, but she was taking on the burden of helping her mother-in-law through her discouragement and difficulty. Ruth had no word from God and no comfort or positive prospects on earth. She had only one thing that we will learn about through the rest of this book: Ruth had an extraordinary spirit of faith that works through love.
The decisions Ruth and her sister Orpah take place at turning points that may come to us at certain times in our lives. Something happens, something changes, and now I must ask myself:
What should I do at this point? Should I set out on the safe way? the sensible path? the expected course? Should I do the thing that looks responsible and safe? There may be absolutely nothing wrong with that. In fact, it may be the best thing to do for you and your loved ones.
Or, on the other hand, should this be an occasion that prompts me to take an extraordinary step of faith? Is it time for me to leave behind what is familiar? Is it time for me to be willing to relinquish a little bit of my security? Is this where I need to recognize and abandon the gods I have been following? Is it time to take a risk, to step out into the darkness, trusting that God will light my path? Is there something or someone who may need me at this time to go beyond ordinary ways of loving to give them a love that goes above and beyond, a love that is extraordinary?
In 1990, Dr. Robertson McQuilkin left the presidency of Columbia Bible College and a worldwide ministry of Bible teaching and missions to care for his wife, who was sinking down into the depths of Alzheimers disease. By 1993, Muriel McQuilkin could no longer recognize her husband. In 1996, Dr. McQuilkin wrote that she was no longer able to contribute any of the relational interaction that most of us consider essential to a happy marriage. He stayed with her and cared for her until she died in September, 2003.
In 1990, he said to Muriel, I’m not going to leave you. I’m not going to turn back. Where you are, I will be. No matter what else happens, there will always be the two of us. Sorry…there will always be the three of us — God in his extraordinary love will light our way through the darkness. His love will carry us and sustain us.
And it did for thirteen years.
Ordinary people, extraordinary love. Energized by a God who says, there is nothing in all creation that can separate you from my love for you in Christ.
The IM Saturday Monks Brunch: September 29, 2018 “Here’s something you don’t see everyday” version
WARNING!
Today’s Brunch includes political material. This may contribute to upset stomach, nausea, headache, and feelings of bitterness, irritability, and hopelessness.
If you smell gas or start to feel the buzz of righteous indignation, shut your mouth to avoid inhaling or exhaling poisonous fumes and leave the room immediately to protect yourself and others.
You don’t see this every day: Getting the leaves’ view of autumn
You don’t see this every day: Honesty in marketing
You don’t see this every day: Slap-happy, the octupus way
You don’t see this every day: A beluga whale in the Thames
Speaking of sea creatures appearing in surprising places, NPR reports how a beluga whale was spotted swimming in the River Thames east of London, far from its normal habitat.
“Belugas are generally an Arctic species that, in Europe, are usually found in the seas of northern Norway and Russia, Phillip Clapham, director of the cetacean program at the Marine Mammal Laboratory at the Alaska Fisheries Science Center, told NPR.”
The beluga has been named Benny. Of course.
You don’t see this every day: An increasingly wobbly planet
When looking at the Earth from afar it appears to be a perfect sphere, but that actually isn’t the case. Because Earth isn’t uniform on all sides due to land masses that shift and change over time, our planet actually wobbles a bit when it spins. Now, a new study by researchers with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and several universities and science centers has pinpointed the causes of Earth’s imperfect spin, called “polar motion,” and they found that humans are contributing to it.
The researchers used a wealth of data gathered over 100 years to build mathematical models to trace the causes of the wobble and found that three factors are at play, and mankind is responsible for one of them.
The three factors are:
Glacial rebound: the pressure and release of pressure by the thick ice sheets on land masses.
Mantle convection: the movement of liquid rock in the Earth’s core causing the plates on the surface to be in constant flux.
Massive ice loss: particularly seen in Greenland and other areas.
According to the article:
…researchers estimate that Greenland has lost roughly 7,500 gigatons, or 7,500,000,000,000 metric tons of ice due to global warming. All that ice loss has happened in the 20th century, and greenhouse gas production has been cited as the primary culprit. Losing all that mass has caused a significant shift on the planet and has contributed to the wobble as well.
You don’t see this every day: A “new” letter from Galileo
It had been hiding in plain sight. The original letter — long thought lost — in which Galileo Galilei first set down his arguments against the church’s doctrine that the Sun orbits the Earth has been discovered in a misdated library catalogue in London. Its unearthing and analysis expose critical new details about the saga that led to the astronomer’s condemnation for heresy in 1633.
The seven-page letter, written to a friend on 21 December 1613 and signed “G.G.”, provides the strongest evidence yet that, at the start of his battle with the religious authorities, Galileo actively engaged in damage control and tried to spread a toned-down version of his claims.
Many copies of the letter were made, and two differing versions exist — one that was sent to the Inquisition in Rome and another with less inflammatory language. But because the original letter was assumed to be lost, it wasn’t clear whether incensed clergymen had doctored the letter to strengthen their case for heresy — something Galileo complained about to friends — or whether Galileo wrote the strong version, then decided to soften his own words.
Galileo did the editing, it seems. The newly unearthed letter is dotted with scorings-out and amendments — and handwriting analysis suggests that Galileo wrote it. He shared a copy of this softened version with a friend, claiming it was his original, and urged him to send it to the Vatican.
You don’t see this every day: An airline crew forgetting to pressurize the cabin
As Jet Airways Flight 9W697 took off from Mumbai on Thursday, something terrifying quickly became clear: The cabin was not properly pressurized.
Oxygen masks dropped from the cabin’s ceiling. “Thirty out of 166 passengers experienced nose and ear bleeding [and] some also complained of headache,” an official with India’s Directorate General of Civil Aviation said, according to the Hindustan Times.
The flight turned back “due to loss in cabin pressure,” according to a statement from the Indian international airline.
But as the Hindustan Times reported, the country’s civil aviation regulator stated that this happened because, “during the climb, crew forgot to select switch to maintain cabin pressure.”
…According to PTI, another unnamed passenger said that the plane “circled overhead for around half-an-hour before landing. There was no announcement (related to the problem) from the crew.”
The airline said five people were hospitalized and have been released. It added that 144 of the original flight’s passengers have been transported to Jaipur on a different flight, and 17 decided “to travel at another point in time.”
You don’t see this every day: Dining with a view like this
People have lunch on a footpath built on the cliff in Longquan Mountains in Longquan in east China’s Zhejiang province Wednesday, Sept. 19, 2018, the first day of the restaurant on the cliff. (Photo credit: Feature China/Barcroft Images/Barcroft Media via Getty Images)
You don’t see this every day: “America’s Dad” jailed as a sexual predator
One of the saddest spectacles I have witnessed in my life is the fall of Bill Cosby. Turns out that one of the world’s great comedians, father figure to many of us who saw him as an example of paternal wisdom and humor, and star of one of my favorite TV shows ever, has been a sexual predator who used his celebrity power to drug women and take advantage of them.
This is a matter of great grief to me.
You don’t see this every day: A riveting partisan spectacle
“The hearings were a Rorschach test for America’s tribes.” (Roger Cohen, NYT)
Many were riveted to their TVs, radios, and internet sites Thursday as the Senate Judicial Committee heard radically different stories from Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Now, I don’t want to downplay the pervasive problem of sexual harassment or sexual violence. Nor do I wish to say anything to diminish the testimony of Dr. Ford, who by all accounts was a credible and sympathetic witness. And, although I don’t think Judge Kavanaugh did himself any favors by exhibiting a partisan spirit, a lack of judicial temperament, and some strange interactions with members of Congress, this post is not really about stating my opinion regarding what I think happened or its impact on his nomination.
But I really have to lament one of the most public examples yet of our broken political system and the hyper-partisanship that makes it impossible for virtually anybody in this country to give a testimony or express an opinion without it being interpreted through harshly polarized lenses. Both the left and the right talked right past each other and it seems that never the twain shall meet in any form of understanding or compromise again.
This is especially unfortunate because this unbridgeable divide has infected even the process that gives us Supreme Court judges, the one institution that is supposed to be about the rule of law and not partisan politics.
In fact, one of the saddest things I heard that day was when the nominee himself angrily blamed his travails on a left-wing conspiracy, calling the process a “calculated and orchestrated political hit, fueled with apparent pent-up anger about President Trump and the 2016 election.” He even called it “revenge on behalf of the Clintons” [what???] and alleged that it was funded by “millions of dollars in money from outside left-wing opposition groups.” Now, whether or not any of those assertions have any merit, this was an oddly partisan and over-the-top emotional rant from a supposedly sober-minded judge.
And Senator Graham, please, take a tonic.
As Emma Grey Ellis says in a piece at Wired:
These [liberal vs. conservative] stances are wildly, maybe disastrously, different. Each side casts the other as inappropriate, and lionizes their own entrants into the fray. And as these narratives grow, change, and refract their way across the internet—being discussed and rehashed by people in their own corners of the political spectrum as they go—the gap between them is likely to widen. Partisan narrative has come to trump attempted objectivity. It’s hard to imagine a scenario where that’s less appropriate than when trying to determine whether a man is fit to be an objective arbiter of truth and justice for an entire nation.
Update: Thank God for Senator Flake and a few others who’ve shown they have consciences.
You don’t see this every day: The world laughing at a U.S. President
Here’s a first. At the U.N. this week, an international audience laughed at the President of the U.S. Despite his claims that they were laughing “with” him, it was perfectly clear that folks from other countries saw that the emperor has no clothes and were mocking his nakedness. Claims, such as those he made, that his administration has accomplished more than almost any other in U.S. history, drew snickers and then outright laughter as the delayed translation of his words got through to those listening.
Incredible.
Furthermore, and this is the part that I find utterly unfunny and downright dangerous, is when President Trump asserted, “We reject the ideology of globalism and we embrace the doctrine of patriotism.” In contrast to a world of cooperation and partnership, he advocated for a doctrine of unilateralism that has a history no one who is sane wants to repeat.
Nationalism and unilateralism ruled in a world that led to World War I. Failed efforts to establish a Wilsonian world of cooperation “to end all wars” led to World War II.
In my opinion, one of the greatest achievements in the history of the world, led by the U.S., was the rebuilding of Europe and Japan after WWII and the establishment of a world in which nations entered into alliances and cooperated to prevent nuclear war, deal with crises around the world, and promote international relations and agreements based on peaceful partnership rather than each nation looking out for its own interests.
It has never led to a utopia, obviously. The world is fraught with problems. But, despite the widespread opinion that our planet is devolving into chaos, take a look at the powerful study, “The short history of global living conditions and why it matters that we know it” by Max Roser, an economist at the University of Oxford. This study contends that on virtually all of the key dimensions of human material well-being — poverty, literacy, health, freedom, and education — the world is a far better place than it was just a couple of centuries ago. You can also read this Forbes piece by Steve Denning, summarizing specific ways in which the world has never been better.
In my view, much of that is due to the progress made since World War II, especially as people and nations have learned to live and work together in peace. “Globalism” is not a dirty word.
Some are telling us now that we need to go back. Why in the world would anyone want that?
You don’t see this every day: The forgotten art of Cowboy Poetry
A New York Times article looks forward to the 35th National Cowboy Poetry Gathering in January of 2019. It’s a great read, and it makes me want to hear more of these mesmerizing poets and storytellers.
Here’s a taste:
You don’t see this every day: Wisdom like this. The quote of the week.
When I was a monk, I thought that the rule of silence was mainly in service of contemplation. Now, after many years of suffering poisoned discourse in the halls of academe, I have come to understand that silence was mainly aboutcharity. As we learn every day in our new world of constant chatter, savage judgment, and long-distance shaming via (anti)social media, when speech is totally without restraint, mercilessness is an almost inevitable consequence.
Well it’s official. The Gospel Coalition do not consider my Pastor a heretic.
I don’t think I would have gotten off so lightly.
I haven’t really talked about where I have been attending church the last few years, but what was intended to be a temporary location to place my butt on a Sunday morning has now turned into three plus years with all indications that it could become rather permanent.
I have been attending “The Meeting House”, a church in a denomination with an Anabaptist heritage. Here is the other interesting part. The church has an average Sunday morning attendance of 5000.
I am going to get into both the church’s size and theology over the next two weeks, and why it is a good fit for me In the meantime an item has come up that is getting some interest up here in Canada, and I thought it would be worth talking about here.
Let me give you a bit of background first.
The Meeting House is a member of the “Brethren in Christ” (“Be in Christ” in Canada). From Wikipedia:
The Brethren in Christ trace their denomination back to a group of Mennonites who lived just north of Marietta, Pennsylvania on the east side of the Susquehanna River. As they met to study the Bible and to experience God in the 1770s, the people of this group who became known as the River Brethren developed a conviction that believer’s baptism by trine immersion was the scriptural form of baptism. The River Brethren of the 18th century also held to a firm reliance on the centricity of Scripture. As their Pietist lifestyles and their beliefs regarding baptism continued to develop, they began to distance themselves from other Anabaptist denominations such as the Mennonites and German Baptists, of which groups they had previously been a part.
A Wesleyan emphasis on holiness had a strong influence on the group around the turn of the previous century, and then in 1950, the denomination decided to intentionally become more outward looking, and moved to align themselves more with evangelicals, ditching many of their established “rules and regulations” along the way.
Still, the denomination in North America was pretty small. When evangelicals met to hammer out the “Chicago Statement on Inerrancy”, the Brethren in Christ weren’t even invited to the table. As a result “Inerrancy” isn’t even part of the Meeting House vernacular. Neither is a whole bunch of other stuff which are typically of concern to evangelicals. I will be expanding on this next week as to why this is important to me.
Fast forward forty years.
Enter Bruxy Cavey (pictured above). From the Christian Courier:
The fortunes of this small denomination changed quite suddenly in Canada in 1996 when the celebrated hippie-like preacher Bruxy Cavey was invited to serve as pastor at a small BIC church plant in Oakville. Within a few years the community of 150 grew to over 1,000 and by 2014 what became called The Meeting House had expanded to include 14 different regional sites with 5,000 weekly attendees and probably about 8,000 people who call it their “home church.”
Not only did this one congregation more than double the number of BIC-associated people in Canada, it sent a ripple of change through the denomination’s culture. This marginal Canadian Christian group was suddenly seeing one of its congregations in national newspapers, and one of its pastors on Christian TV, with a bestseller on Amazon and one of the top “religion and spirituality” podcasts in the nation. People were joining The Meeting House from every Christian denomination in Ontario — from Roman Catholics to Reformed and even the United Church. Almost overnight, the BIC moved from the shadows to the limelight.
Some people got concerned. Bruxy, and indeed the whole denomination holds some views that other segments of evangelicalism are uncomfortable with. You can google “Bruxy Cavey Heretic” to get a sampling of these concerns.
Enter The Gospel Coalition.
Providentially, the TGC Executive Council was also beginning to feel the need for some sort of formal inquiry into The Meeting House phenomenon. Many of our churches were wondering how to relate to this new movement. Should they be considered allies? Enemies? Or something in between? We had all seen the video clips and the tweets but in truth, no one on the council was more informed than me so I was volunteered to open a dialogue.
We had three basic goals for the conversation.
First of all, we wanted to understand. Bad things happen in our world when people shoot first and ask questions later. We wanted to do more than react to statements and clips, we wanted to seek context, ask questions, hear testimony and probe motivations.
Secondly, we wanted to provide some kind of summary analysis and recommendation for our people. TGC Canada exists to resource churches in their efforts to reach their communities with the Gospel. It’s our job to do homework on behalf of busy pastors and leaders and then to share and distribute what we’ve learned. This analysis and summary represents my personal effort to provide such a resource; a collaborative statement will be developed and released shortly by the council as a whole.
Thirdly, we wanted to model a better way of engaging in dialogue with our theological and ecclesiological neighbours. Social Media is a mixed blessing – at best. It encourages sharing things that we do not really understand and have not personally looked into. It encourages mob mentality and it by-passes prayer and sober process.
The conversations and conclusions are available ere, here, here, and here. I encourage you to read them, they are both informative and interesting.
Honestly, though, it did not feel like a conversation to me, nor to several other friends who have come upon the dialogue. It felt like an inquisition with The Gospel Coalition setting themselves up as judge and jury. A true dialogue would have had more challenges to the Gospel Coalition. For example, something along the lines of “So, don’t you think the Gospel Coalition’s treatment of women is a barrier to the gospel?”
Bruxy Cavey passes muster. The leader of the inquisition pronounced:
Having summarized my observations, I am ready to render my conclusion.
Bruxy Cavey is not a heretic.
He’s an Anabaptist.
Does he have no idea how pretentious that sounds?
Does he have no sense of the history of reformers (TGC is a Reform movement) pronouncing judgement on Anabaptists and then executing them?
But here is paragraph that really caught my eye in his recommendation to churches:
Within your church, state your convictions clearly
Preach, write, blog and publish what you believe. Work very hard to ground all of your terminology and definitions in the text. Go through your Statement of Faith with your Board. Make sure you understand what you believe.
Preach, pray and proclaim your heart out!
Be wonderfully and marvelously precise in your statements! Getting it right MATTERS! See, say and savor every aspect, shade and nuance that is legitimately present in the display of God’s glory in the cross of Jesus Christ.
Don’t pull your punches and do not be afraid to require essential agreement upon Gospel matters within your membership – and particularly within your leadership culture.
You see, if they had been investigating me, and my writings at Internet Monk, I don’t think I would have gotten off so lightly. From the paragraph above, I certainly wouldn’t be welcome within their church. This is a large part of the reason why I have ended up at a church like The Meeting House in the first place. More on that next week.
By John Polkinghorne (Part 3a) — Lessons from History
We are reviewing the book, “Quantum Physics and Theology: An Unexpected Kinship” by John Polkinghorne. Today we will look at the first part of Chapter 3- Lessons from History.
Polkinghorne begins the chapter by discussing Thomas Kuhn’s famous book, The Structure of Scientific Revolutionsand his notion of paradigm shifts. Kuhn’s idea is that there are times of scientific revolution that are moments of radical change in which the scientific paradigm (the currently accepted total view) is drastically altered. The dawn of quantum theory, with the abandonment of Newtonian paradigm would be one such occasion. A physical world previously thought to be clear and deterministic was found to be cloudy and fitful at its subatomic roots. The theological analogue would be the birth of Christianity, with its radical notions of a crucified Messiah and a risen Lord leading to an incarnational and Trinitarian paradigm of the nature of God and his relationship to his creation.
Although Kuhn later admitted he oversold the “paradigm shift” and exaggerated the degree of discontinuity in his enthusiasm for his new idea, nevertheless, he had certainly hit on an important general principle of how to understand what is going on in science, namely; the history of science is the best clue to the philosophy of science. If you want to know how science operates, and what it may legitimately claim to achieve, you have to be willing to study how science is actually done and how its understanding develops. The philosophy of science, properly pursued, is largely a bottom-up argument about how things have turned out to be, rather than a top-down argument about how they had to be. Polkinghorne believes that theology needs to work with the idea of an historically unfolding development of doctrine, as is concomitant with the belief in the continuing work of the Holy Spirit (John 16:12-15). He asserts revelation is a process rather than a once-for-all act of the communication of instant knowledge. He says:
There will certainly be times of special insight, such as the New Testament period, that are comparable to times of revolutionary scientific paradigm shift, but there will also times of steady ‘normal theology’. Our comparative study of science and Christian theology can appropriately turn to considering some historical examples of how the discovery of truth proceeds in these two disciplines.
(1) Growing recognition of deeper significance. Progress in understanding requires a process of the sifting and exploration of the consequences opened up by new conceptual possibilities.
(a) Theoretical progress. Plank’s original hypothesis, that radiation is emitted and absorbed in packets (he called quanta) whose individual energy content is directly proportional to the frequency of the radiation, yielded a splendidly successful formula for the spectrum of black-body radiation.
Plank was not comfortable with his discovery, describing it later in life as an ‘act of desperation’. Quanta are entities that are countable (you have 1, 2, 3, … packets of energy). In 1913, Niels Bohr extended this idea of countability to another physical quantity, angular momentum, a measure of a system’s rotatory motion. This enabled Bohr to construct his famous model of the hydrogen atom, which was quantitatively successful in explaining the properties of the hydrogen spectrum, but was still a numerological curiosity that fitted the facts, although no one new why.
Not until 1926, when Erwin Schrodinger exploited an analogy with the relationship between wave optics and geometrical optics that enabled him to conjecture his famous “Schrodinger Equation”, did it seem that a real understanding had been gained.
A little earlier, Werner Heisenberg had discovered the first true formulation of quantum theory, but he expressed it in what was at the time seemed to be an unfamiliar and untransparent fashion that wasn’t immediately recognizable as being the same physical theory as proposed by Schrodinger. Paul Dirac demonstrated the fundamental equivalence of the two theories based on the superposition principle, and quantum physics was born.
John says:
The quantum story is one of continuous development within an expanding envelope of understanding. The endpoint (modern quantum theory) looked very different from the starting-points (drops of energy dripping from a black body), yet the pattern had been one of coherent growth in conceptual understanding and effective explanation, linking start to finish and giving the whole episode the character of an increasingly profound grasp of truth.
(b) Titles and incarnation. Polkinghorne says Christian thinking about the status and significance of Jesus exhibits a corresponding pattern of truth-seeking development. The persistence of the title Christ, until it soon effectively became a second name, suggests the earliest Christians recognized that this was an original title of his Lordship that had faithfully to be preserved. The title “Son of man” has a more complex story. Sometimes it seems the phrase is clearly referring to Jesus and it implies a special significance attached to him (for example Mark 8:31). At other times it seems to refer to a figure closely associated with Jesus but not unequivocally identified with him (Mark 8:36). It is very likely that in using the phrase, Jesus had in mind the vision described in Daniel 7. If that is the case, the title carries a very special degree of significance, beyond that of simply referring to a prophetic messenger charged with conveying a word from God. It seems inconceivable that the post-resurrection Christian community would have any doubt that Jesus was the final fulfiller of God’s purposes.
Polkinghorne notes that among the Old Testament images that the first Christians used were the notion of Jesus as the second Adam who reverses the consequences of the first Adam’s fall (Romans 5:12-21) and the figure of divine Wisdom (1 Cor. 1:24). By the time the prologue to John was written (probably towards the end of the first century) Jesus is identified with the Word. Polkinghorne believes this is a blending of the ordering principle of universe, which is one meaning of the Greek word logos, with the Hebrew concept of dabar, the Word of God active in history—and the Word is identified with divinity. Throughout the gospel of John, Jesus is referred to as Son sent by the Father, yet that gospel contains a verse (John 14:28, ‘because the Father is greater than I’) to which the Arians would later appeal as supporting their subordination of the Son to the Father. Polkinghorne says:
By the end of the New Testament period, there was already much Christological development and some Christological confusion. Theological debate continued, leading eventually to the decisions of the great ecumenical Councils that culminated in the doctrine that the man Jesus of Nazareth was the incarnation of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity. As in quantum theory, so in Christian theology, much greater significance came finally to be recognized than had been apparent at the start of the process of searching for the truth.
Finding a Christian (metaphysical) View of Nature, Part II by J. Michael Jones
The Implications of our View on the Material on our View of Nature. While Platonic Dualism found a welcoming home within the Church, the Rousseauian view of nature (I’m using nature here as a sub category under material) has completely swept western culture as the dominant view. In review, Jean-Jacques Rousseau saw nature in its raw form as perfect, even after the Fall of Adam. He believed that every time humans touch nature, they make it worse. This is the fundamental view today and it is a philosophical view and not one of science. This is an over-simplification, but if there was no Rousseau (who was also influenced by Hume, Locke, and others) there would be no signs in the grocery store such as, “Natural,” “Nature Made,” “Organic,” “unprocessed,” “Non-GMO,” and the more recent, “Ancient” as in ancient grains. These terms carry very positive connotations about being healthy, but it is not based in real science but on the emotional overlays of Rousseauian theory. All those terms are other ways of saying that product has less human touching and therefore, assumed, to be better. In reality, human intervention can be good, or it can be bad, but it is not intrinsically just one or the other. Our Navigator staff in college staff sold us Shaklee vitamins. He implied they were better than other vitamins because they were from a natural source (less touching by humans), implying that was being closer to what God wanted.
To a scientist, a chemical is a chemical, no matter if it came from a plant or a lab. That health risks must be evaluated on the rational science behind it, not on the broad notions that non-intervention is better than intervention. For me, if I ever eat the meat of a puffer fish (highly poisonous), I want there to be a lot of interventions by humans. I want it to be well-processed by a well-trained—preferably Japanese—chef.
Rousseau was reacting to the perverted Christian notion that the material, including nature, was inferior and dirty and our role was to exploit it. So, he swung to the opposite direction, advocating that we completely leave it alone. But the Biblical view is that sin has damaged nature and our role is to bring it back as close to the state of Eden as we can. We are to be stewards of the earth, not pillagers thereof. While nature is full of toxins, carcinogens and poisons, humans have also introduced plenty more. But the good or ills of anything can’t be measured by the amount of human manipulation or the lack thereof, but by the merits of those goods or ills alone.
The Theological Implications of Your View on the Material. First, look at how your perspective influences your theological notions of spirituality. If you adopt the Platonic-Christian view of the material, then you would believe that your soul is an unattached mist (Pythagoras called this “Metempsychosis”) and therefore has great fluidity. It can change on a dime, just with the will. In that case you believe in a system of obtaining spirituality that is hierarchical. You start to see yourself as a good person, soon after becoming a Christian, then a godly person, and finally—through this distorted view of sanctification—a saint. You also measure others’ spirituality with the same false parameters (which are usually built on skillful pretense). You start to over-trust yourself or your spiritual leaders, until you are greatly disappointed.
Likewise, those things which are above the material, the so-called “supranatural,” have great merit in this system. That’s why so many seek miracles to authenticate spiritual experience. The true Biblical perspective is that everything this side of nothing, including the material, is a miracle because God made it out of nothing. This was the thinking behind Albert Einstein’s statement, “There are only two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle.” It makes no sense that God put up a wall between the created-material and the created-immaterial and only the immaterial is of value. There is no less a presence of God where someone’s cancer is cured by the most sophisticated medical treatments, based on decades of research by smart and dedicated people (using the brains God has given them) and relying on the complex biological systems (which God has created) than where the cancer just disappears with the assumption it was by a “miracle.”
In the Platonic-Christian model, your concept of God is the other, in the ether, higher than this nasty world. We are reminded of the influence of Platonic philosophy every time we attend a Christian funeral (as I did yesterday). The theme is repeated over and over, “He (or she) is in a better place now. They have been set free of the bondage of this world.” While those statements offer some comfort to the grieving, there is a complete disregard for the scriptural notions about our eternity being connected to this repaired and renewed earth. The Greek word for paradise (παραδείσῳ or paradeisō), as appears in Luke 23:43 when Jesus is speaking to the thief on the cross, is from the Persian word to imply an enclosed garden, much like Eden. A real, material garden.
In Platonic-Christian model, God can be respected, honored, and feared, but He is not a God that you can imagine has felt empathy with what you have felt. It is harder to imagine this God finding pleasure in your physical work, your art, your rest, your hobbies, and your idleness. He would only have pleasure in your transcendence from the mundane. The Platonic-Christian view of the eschatology is that this nasty world will end, and we will spend eternity as immaterial vapors in an immaterial numinous place.
The Islamic view of Allah has even a greater influence of Plato (and others) thinking than Christianity, at least at this point in history, so they see God even more in this light. This view of the material permits the acts of terrorism. If this world is insignificant as compared to the immaterial, then driving a truck-full of explosives into a nursery school is worth the immaterial gain. The Medieval Church did the similar acts of violence around the world with the same logic.
On the other hand, the Biblical concept would see that the Fall of Adam has penetrated deeply into the material. None of us have perfect circuits in our brains, or perfect bodies. History is not perfect either but has real injury. Wounded human history is dangerous. All things do not happen for a reason, as a Hallmark card would declare. Some things work for our harm, because of the consequences of sin in the material world. That sin is real, and it is not conquerable (by us), although it is our call to oppose it. But, with this view, we would also have a deep dependence on the mercies of God and the redemption of Christ.
With a more Biblical view, we would also look at all other people as soulmates, as comrades in a fallen world. We, with great humility, would see even the most evil people with the attitude of, “but for the grace of God, there goes I.”
The Psychological Implications of Your View of the Material. I can remember a vivid moment in 1984 when I first learned that depression could sometimes be “endogenous.” A paper was just released where a blood test, call the dexamethasone suppression test, could predict if the depression was organic (meaning from brain structure—either genetically or environmentally acquired) or because of emotional factors. I was a solid evangelical at the time. I remember shaking my head and laughing—more like sneering—at the physician with who showed me the study. As an evangelical, unknowingly, I had been taught the Platonic-Christian model of the material, rather than the Biblical model.
If the material is insufficient, then the Christian twist to the Platonic view is that the “spiritual” is all that matters. We are Heaven-bound creatures with no investment in this ball of nasty dirt we call Earth. Even the word dirt has its roots in the Middle English with two meanings, nasty shit or the substance of this earth.
Following that thought, the psyche or self (we can use the Christian word “soul” here too) therefore has no union with the physical body. The cranium is where this ghostly, immaterial, us resides. The soul is not attached to the brain any more than water is attached to a glass picture that contains it. Therefore, it would make no sense that something structural within the brain, either from our genetic makeup or physical and emotional traumas, could be causing depression. In our eyes then, all parts of the human character, judgement, happiness or sadness, the things that make up the fruits of the spirit, sexual orientation or identity, are the results of personal, moral choices.
With trepidation, I will share a personal story how I have struggled my entire life with a general anxiety disorder. It was present in my preschool years and up until the present. After spending enormous energy—much more than I should have—trying to understand it though introspection, I suspect that it is from a genetic cause. I say this because I’ve had no childhood trauma to account for such an early manifestation of anxiety. My dear mother, who I just lost a few weeks ago, struggled from severe anxiety her entire life requiring her to be medicated up until the end. Some would say that maybe she taught me to be anxious, yet I have three siblings who endured the same mother without such an affliction.
The reason I share this with some apprehension is that the usual assumption in the Christian community—if not the community at large—for someone to declare their anxiety as genetic problem is a sorry excuse at best. That my anxiety must be from a deep moral failure. If it makes anyone feel better, this was my own assumption for most of my life. I lived perpetually in a state of shame. Men are not supposed to be anxious, especially godly men. I was told that countless times by my college Navigator leader.
However, anxiety has been my lifelong nemesis. If I were a Muslim, it would represent my personal jihad (which is the Muslims’ rite to struggle). However, in defense of myself, I will say that I’ve spent uncountable hours (in the thousands) working on this through prayer, Bible study, verse memorization, exercises in trusting God, listening to lectures and sermons, reading books, attending seminars, meeting with psychologists, all with some help but no cure. Also, for the sake of “exposure,” I took up rock climbing and mountaineering because of my acrophobia. I signed up for a coast-to-coast speaking tour when I worked at Mayo Clinic, because of my glossophobia (fear of public speaking). So, in both cases, leading up to each of the exposures, climbing a mountain or speaking in a hotel ballroom in front of hundreds of people, I would lay awake for night after night in a cold sweat.
In the case of the psychological, if we had the more Biblical perspective of the material, we would believe that God created the material and saw that it was good. Different from the Platonic-Christian view, it is also real. The material matter does matter. God is our biological father and the material Earth is our mother. I don’t mean this in an animistic or pantheistic way. Of course, God is the creator of all, including the Earth and it is subject to Him as His creation. But we have this material bond with planet Earth, and all the material that God intended. Jesus deliberately spat on the dirt and made mud to heal a blind man’s eyes. It was his destiny to die on a material tree and be put into the material ground to exonerate us.
Our material brains are the hardware on which our souls rest as software. Brain structure does matter and is intimately attached to who we are. It is not perfect as all the material is under the Fall. So, with this paradigm, people are born with; personality traits, tendencies toward cheerfulness, depression or anxiety, sexual orientations, or where the sexuality identity of their brains may not match that of their genitals. Life events can alter this material brain as well. It could be a brain injury or a serious emotional trauma (e.g. PTSD) that changes the circuits, lending us more to anxiety or depression. Yes, within the immaterial, we can make changes. I have chosen to work on my anxiety for my entire adult life. If I had not, I would be in much worse shape. However, I never expect a cure, because the material is real, not just a shadow and the brain… not so pliable.
The Social Implications of Your View on the Material. Our view of the material also has a profound influence on our social perspectives. If human behavior is built upon the fluid choices of the soul, then our personal choices are defined by our character. There is no excuse for bad behavior. Bad people do bad things and good people do good things. You can continue down this line of thinking that the dumb are dumb by their own choices. That the rich are those who work the hardest and the poor are those who are the laziest, and that the refugee is a refugee by their own making.
In this way of thinking, not only does the material layout of the brain have no influence on your outcome, but neither does your upbringing. If you are a drug abuser, poor, violent and with mental health problems, then it does not matter if you were raised in horrible world of violence and despair. Those things can’t matter because, in this scenario, your character is not built on the material, but upon your spiritual character.
Ben Carson is the darling of the Evangelicals because he proves to the world that coming out of the “ghetto” is one’s own moral choice. Therefore, we don’t need to listen to those who cannot pull themselves up by their own bootstraps. We don’t need to have empathy for those who are the product of generations of discrimination at the best and total abuse at the worst. Neither do we need to have sympathy for those running from war because it was their choice to create such a bad culture where war runs rampant (which are often proxy wars by the “civilized” superpowers, being played out on their soil).
The Platonic Dualistic view (the universe is divided between the material and the immaterial, and the immaterial is all that matters) sits on one end of the social spectrum. That end is most attractive to the affluent, those who had nice, stable upbringings, and who have fewer issues of mental illness. It always feels good to believe that you have things so good because you have earned it and others don’t because they have characters inferior to yours. This end is also very attractive to the Christian, because within the Christian’s value of spirituality, they want to, at least appear, that they are good because of their personal good choices.
On the extreme opposite end of this spectrum rests those who hold the Impersonal Universe perspective on the material. For them, there is nothing but the material. There is no God, no spirituality and no choice. If the universe came into being by chance and now follows the laws of physics, it is a deterministic view of being or what is called a natural fatalism. If we are a serial killer, we are not culpable, because the physics, including the physics and biochemistry of brain function is fixed. In that model we are just robots anyway, carbon-based robots. Robots who smash and kill other robots have no less value than robots that save other robots in the Impersonal Universe.
The Political Implications of Your View on the Material. The political connects directly to the social. On the far right of the political spectrum are those who believe that all behavior is determined by simple free moral choice because we are immaterial and can change at any moment, if we have the moral will. So that side gravitates toward “personal responsibility.” This would mean harsher imprisonments for criminals. Seeing the poor and mentally ill as deserving the state they are in (and not funding programs to help them), and the same being true for immigrants and refugees. This would lead to not only less money for social services and more for the military to protect us from the bad guys. This side is most appealing to the Evangelical because it supports the Platonic view of the material, which as I have mentioned, the Church has-erroneously—adopted.
On the far left, there is yet another quandary. They correspond to the Impersonal Universe view, which states that there can be no sin, no failures and no fault. This side would favor pure socialism as the best form of justice as it is a no-fault position. Everyone should have the same salary, the same benefits, punishments should be soft and there are no bad guys.
Summary; Finding a Christian View of the Material, Based on Scripture. In Genesis 1:31, it says, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning—the sixth day.” (NIV). So, all that God has created, was created outside Himself, created in measurable material and was very good. An expansion of this simple text is that the physical earth is very good, all the creatures are very good, and all the humans are intrinsically good because they are the result of this creative act of God. However, sin is also real and has influence this material world. The influence is also material, hardened and persistent.
We look to God for immediate redemption, from a justification perspective. However, the road to bringing redemption in our material universe, including our own brains, is slow and methodical. We therefore look at others with an exhausting grace. Jesus knew this well. He held people accountable, “go your way and sin no more,” but loved them deeply, knowing that the blemishes within our souls are written in stone, not smoke.
Lately I have been in a creative phase where I have enjoyed making boutique jams. I have make thirty seven jars of Black-raspberry, chokecherry, wild grape, wild grape – chokecherry, or crab-apple rhubarb at various times over the summer and fall. Recently I was visiting my parents home about an hour away. I noticed that their crab-apple tree was laden with fruit, and immediately my thoughts went to trying to make crab-apple jam or jelly. Also visiting was a relative, Nigel Paul, the founder of MoveIn.To, a “movement of regular Christians prayerfully moving in among the unreached, urban poor.” I suggested that I was interested in picking the crab apples, and Nigel volunteered to help.
Rowan Williams on the Eucharist (1)
The Internet Monk Archives 