If he had lived long enough to witness the relegation of Pluto to the status of a dwarf planet in 2006, Lewis would have been quietly pleased. He would have taken it as confirmation of his view that ‘a scientific fact’ is not necessarily the immutable, universal truth that it is popularly believed to be. The glory of science is to progress as new facts are discovered to be true, and such progress means that ‘factual truth’ is a provisional human construct. Which is why the wise man does not think only in the category of truth; the category of beauty is also worth thinking in. – Michael Ward, Planet Narnia, 27
Archive for December, 2010
The War Is Over if You Want It
ox·y·mo·ron
[ok-si-mawr-on, -mohr-]
Rhetoric
–n. a figure of speech by which a locution produces an incongruous, seemingly self-contradictory effect, as in “cruel kindness” or “to make haste slowly.”It is official. I’m a global warming/climate change skeptic. Something is happening but I’m not convinced that it is our fault, that we can really do anything about it and that anyone really understands it. So when I read this in the NY Times I just kind of rolled my eyes. “The reality is, we’re freezing not in spite of climate change but because of it.” It seems to me that once they (rightly) stopped calling it “global warming” they lost the fight. The earth’s climate has never been stable, it has always changed. Calling it “climate change” is like saying “random chance” or “convicted felon.” It is redundant. Climate changes. When you start saying, with a straight face, “It is getting colder because it is getting warmer” you just punctuate my assertion that you’ve lost.
Ha. Man, how I was that were true. If it were, we might be able to get past the politics, religion and money that drives so much of the climate change (okay, I said it, so what?) debate and get some real answers to what’s happening and why and if we’re in a good place to cope.
Update: Just came across a video of a British meteorologist who predicted the cold winter in Europe. He says that the “warming causes cooling” argument is not based on any kind of science.
Leavers
Fuller Seminary recently conducted a study on teens who become leavers in college. The researchers uncovered the single most significant factor in whether young people stand firm in their Christian convictions or leave them behind. And it’s not what most of us might expect.
Join a campus ministry group? A Bible study? Important though those things are, the most decisive factor is whether students had a safe place to work through their doubts and questions before leaving home…
Instead of addressing teens’ questions, most church youth groups focus on fun and food. The goal seems to be to create emotional attachment using loud music, silly skits, slapstick games — and pizza. But the force of sheer emotional experience will not equip teens to address the ideas they will encounter when they leave home and face the world on their own. – Nancy Pearcey (via Tim Challis)
Animal Intent
I hated these ponies for the part they played in my father’s death but now I realized the notion was fanciful, that it was wrong to charge these pretty beasts who knew neither good nor evil but only innocence. I say that of these ponies. I have know some horses and a good many more pigs who I believe harbored evil intent in their hearts. I will go further and say all cats are wicked, though often useful. Who has not seen Satan in their sly faces? Some preachers will say, well, that is superstitious “claptrap.” My answer is this: Preacher, go to your Bible and read Luke 8:26-33 – Charles Portis, True Grit, page 29
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
I know full well that finding secret codes is a favorite pastime for obsessives, conspiracy-theorists, charlatans with a eye to the main chance, et hoc genus omne [and everything of this kind]; it has been unwittingly satirized in Dan Brown’s blockbusting thriller, The Da Vinci Code. Occasionally, however, a sober critic, paying close attention to a text, will make an interpretive discovery and produce a bona fide ‘code breaking’ work. – Michael Ward, Planet Narnia
When Restraint Seems Like A Virtue
I haven’t said much about Julian Assange yet because, unlike the media, I think we have to wait and see. The question to me is whether Assange is Bruce Wayne or Joker from The Dark Knight. Is he a hero fighting a corrupt system on behalf of the common man, or is he simply an anarchist who wants to watch it all burn?
What we know so far is that he is the founder and final editor at Wikileaks. He has published a bunch of secret American documents. Now he’s wanted in Sweden for unrelated charges. Paypal, Mastercard and Visa have blocked the ability for people to donate money for his support and that resulted in a cyberattack against them by Assange’s supporters.
So how do we decide if he’s a good guy or a bad guy? For one thing he’s trying to free information. The government can make things secret for convenience reasons as well as for national security reasons. It is possible that Assange is simply airing the dirty laundry that world governments would rather keep in the laundry basket. But none of what he’s released so far is of any benefit to the common man. There are embarrassing missives between diplomats. So what? So our representative in country X thinks the leader is a ninny. That doesn’t really help the man on the street.
However, Assange claims to have a doomsday weapon that will reveal all kinds of secrets about the financial industry should he be sent to prison. Okay, maybe that could help the common man but it could also ruin him by crashing the institutes to which his life savings are entrusted. And there’s the rub. If he just wanted to collapse the entire Western system, that doomsday weapon (if it is real) could have done it. He has shown restraint. He’s vetted the information he’s posted in order to protect people. At least the ones he’s decided deserve protection. I think he’s capable of doing much more than he has done. He started his “career” as a hacker and has, as they say, madd skillz. Restraint sounds like a virtue, but Joker restrained his powers in order to do the maximum amount of damage at the right time too.
Bottom line is that Assange hasn’t done anything remarkable yet. The media is ready to either vilify him or make him a saint. That’s largely because the outlets have a political philosophy and are under pressure to produce reports so they land on one side or the other. It is too early to call on this one. So let’s all show some restraint, shall we?
Stuttering, Lisping, Mumbling God’s Word
I preached a few Sundays ago on the Annunciation. After I preached, I didn’t feel I did a very good job. The subject matter of the Second Person of the Trinity taking on a human nature just was overwhelming to me. I had too many ideas running round my head and felt like I was trying to herd field mice getting them in order. Then, don’t you know, one of the best preachers I know (no, not John Piper) came walking in before the service with his family. I was nervous and then settled but the next day I was depressed. I just didn’t feel I’d captured the majesty of what Gabriel was talking about.
But even though I may stutter and lisp and mumble when I preach God’s word, the Holy Spirit never does when he applies it. Since then I’ve heard a number of people refer to what I said in the sermon. That, my friends, is the greatest compliment a preacher can get. At least for me, there is so much self-doubt that when I am told what a great sermon it was, I always have a nagging suspicion that the compliment is not sincere. But when I hear people refer to things I talked about in the sermon, even if they don’t mention me, especially if they don’t mention me, then I know that the Spirit blessed His word and sunk it into the hearts of his people. That cannot be faked and I’m happiest when they forget where they learned it. That protects me from vanity and them from fixating on the teacher over the message.
Eden In A Corner Of My Mind
And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed…A river flowed out of Eden to water the garden, and there it divided and became four rivers. The name of the first is the Pishon…The name of the second river is the Gihon…And the name of the third river is the Tigris, which flows east of Assyria. And the fourth river is the Euphrates. The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. – Genesis chapter 2
Now I’m not foolish enough to hop up and down and say they found Eden, but the thought did sit quietly in a corner of my mind when I read this article. The Tigris and Euphrates go north from the Persian Gulf near Iran and Iraq. After Adam and Eve were evicted, an angel stood guard at the entry of the garden. That would have lasted till the garden was destroyed in the Noah’s flood. The garden was the place where humanity began. I have long thought that the garden of Eden must have been in the Persian Gulf based on the rivers referenced. We don’t know where Pishon and Gihon are but the names of the Tigris and Euphrates haven’t changed since Moses wrote so it must be that Eden was associated with them. I think it is unlikely that we’ll ever find evidence of the garden at the bottom of the Persian Gulf but this is something interesting to consider.
Are These the Puritans You’ve Heard Of?
“The Puritans recovered the biblical teaching that the marriage bed was to be honored and not just tolerated. They gave themselves to the married state with a strong commitment, and one of their great contributions to our culture was the establishment of the view that romantic and erotic devotion was sustainable within the covenant of marriage. In discussion this, C.S. Lewis once commented that the exaltation of virginity was a Roman Catholic trait, and ‘that of marriage, a Protestant trait’ . . . The Puritans taught that sexual love within marriage was not only lawful, it was supposed to be exuberant and passionate” (Beyond Stateliest Marble, pp. 46-47).
(Source: Doug Wilson)
Fogcutter
Yes, if we turn pure eyes and upright senses toward it, the majesty of God will immediately come to view, subdue our bold rejection, and compel us to obey. – John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion