Very interesting map. Notice teh brightness in South AMerica, parts of Africa and the the Far East (Korea!). I wonder what a similar map for Lutherans would look like? From here.
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Evangelicals around the world
Very interesting map. Notice teh brightness in South AMerica, parts of Africa and the the Far East (Korea!). I wonder what a similar map for Lutherans would look like? From here.
Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Short little spans of attention
Yes, this is me:
You don’t have to agree that “we” are getting stupider, or that today’s youth are going to hell in a handbasket (by gum!) to mourn the withering away of the ability to think about one thing for a prolonged period of time. Carr (whose argument was grievously mislabeled by the Atlantic’s headline writers as a salvo against the ubiquitous search engine) reported feeling the change “most strongly” while he was reading. “Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy,” he wrote. “Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text.” For my own part, I now find it challenging to sit still on my sofa through the length of a feature film. The urge to, for example, jump up and check the IMDB filmography of a supporting actor is well-nigh irresistible, and once I’m at the computer, why not check e-mail? Most of the time, I’ll wind up pausing the DVD player before the end of the movie and telling myself I’ll watch the rest tomorrow. . . . .
From the First Things blog.
You don’t have to agree that “we” are getting stupider, or that today’s youth are going to hell in a handbasket (by gum!) to mourn the withering away of the ability to think about one thing for a prolonged period of time. Carr (whose argument was grievously mislabeled by the Atlantic’s headline writers as a salvo against the ubiquitous search engine) reported feeling the change “most strongly” while he was reading. “Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy,” he wrote. “Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text.” For my own part, I now find it challenging to sit still on my sofa through the length of a feature film. The urge to, for example, jump up and check the IMDB filmography of a supporting actor is well-nigh irresistible, and once I’m at the computer, why not check e-mail? Most of the time, I’ll wind up pausing the DVD player before the end of the movie and telling myself I’ll watch the rest tomorrow. . . . .
From the First Things blog.
Death Unplugged
Here is an article I wrote a couple of years ago for Touchstone Magazine. March of 2007.
Preacher, they are going to pull the plug. I think you better come over here.” When I hear these words, I recall the familiar terror at having yet again to face death. Not death in a book or as a faraway thought that “yes, people die,” but death coming to someone I know well, death that I will witness in a matter of hours.
I know that death will grab that family on the inside and squeeze from them emotions and grief they did not know they possessed. This family will look to me, the preacher, to speak, to say something.
But I also wonder at the choice of words. “Pulling the plug.” It is a phrase that has become more and more associated with the last moments of human life. The dear Christian woman who called me was not speaking of a dishwasher or a computer but a person, a man she loved, one whose death would break her heart. Yet she used sterile and mechanistic words to announce his coming death. They are pulling the plug.
No More Angels
Increasingly, the experience of death and even, yes, specifically Christian death (that is, Christians dying with Christians there to witness it) is mostly filled not with moments of meditation on Scripture, nor with prayer, nor even with bittersweet memories. No, the hours of passing are used up staring at computer screens that spit out mysterious data we barely understand but think somehow to be crucial.
Even if we are dying at home, we discuss medical issues, pain thresholds, internal organ performance. We watch our loved ones die while watching heart rates and oxygen levels and commenting on the fluctuations of blood pressure and kidney function. We die in hospitals and hospice care where the (mostly caring and loving) attendants adjust morphine levels and our ears are filled with the relentless hum of machines and IV drips. “His blood pressure dropped 10 points last hour. Might be the end.” “Can’t be long. His kidneys have shut down.”
Death comes to us not as angels carrying the soul to distant shores, not as a grim reaper grabbing his prey, not even as one falling asleep. Death comes as system failure, the machine of the body coming to a stop—as planned obsolescence. The doctors and attendants chronicle and interpret the confusing river of numbers and levels and screens with jaggedy lines scrolling on and on.
Healthcare workers are today’s high priests of death, the mediators between us and our loved ones, now patched into the machine of technological medicine, the machine that promises life and ultimately eases our way to mortality. The room becomes suddenly hushed when the one with the stethoscope enters. We watch his movements as carefully as primitive believers watch the gyrations of a witch doctor. Every move is analyzed, we are intensely curious about every word and gesture of the “medical professional,” every body part touched, every machine adjusted. His words are analyzed and pondered.
When we come to questions of death and dying, it is doctors and medical professionals who supply the answers. They speak of potassium levels and respirators and how sorry they are.
A philosophy professor I had in college once commented on how the dominant technology of the day becomes the dominant image we have of our mind and rationality and the workings of our bodies. If gears and pulleys run our machines, we tend to think of ourselves in terms of gears and pulleys.
If planting, harvest, and weather make up our way of life, elements like air and fire and water will suffice to explain the mystery of the human body. If computers or chemicals dominate our work and study, we frame our thinking about our bodies in terms of chemistry and computing. We are so sure that this is indeed the way our bodies work, and then the next age giggles at our simplicity and replaces the image.
Barren Perceptions
It is this way with death. We carry our frames of reference and images to the sickbed. Experiencing death these days is not only a matter of dying in antiseptic hospitals with “do not resuscitate” orders and a mindset that views us as natural systems or machines. We ourselves see things this way.
When we see someone die, it looks like something to us, like something an awful lot like a car engine sputtering when short of fuel or a computer going through its programmed checklist as it shuts itself off. At the threshold of death we do not battle a medical establishment or a naturalistic worldview crashing into piety; we confront our own barren perceptions of the human body and the moment of death.
The actual moment of death has always been viewed as a compressed, pregnant slice of time that distills the essence of that life which is ending. What happens in the last moments of life, the way in which a person dies, is of deep interest to those who live on. Those who grieve, whether devout or not, insist on telling the story of how the loved one died. Those last moments are instinctively held to be important, worthy of being recounted.
The Church has felt this as well. The last moments of the martyrs, filled though they may have been with intense suffering, were seen and proclaimed as physical messages of sanctity. The smell of Polycarp’s flesh burning was experienced as the sweet smell of incense.
The moments of death were messages that captured the essence of the person. The fate of the body carried a spiritual message. Gregory Nazianzus reported that his father died with the words and forms of the liturgy on his lips, thus displaying the content of his character for all to see. What was true of him in life showed itself in his physical posture at death.
Athanasius commented on the feet of St. Antony at his time of death that Antony lifted them up as to greet friends who were coming to him. The opponents of Luther insisted that his death had been a wretched one as his heresy finally racked his body at the moment of truth, while Lutherans still today repeat his last words as a summary of his life and teachings, “We are all beggars.”
What is common to all these last moments is the connection between the spiritual life and the physical life, the interpenetration, if you will, of soul and body. Many people once believed that the actions of the body at the crucial time of death were a reliable window into the state of the soul.
It is this connection between body and soul that we are increasingly unable to make. What we see when someone dies is more and more just a thing that stops working. We pull the plug. In the same way, we swap organs and tranfuse blood without much thought. The body has ceased to be a reliable and holy text on which to read the soul.
Climactic Death
What happens to the body is irrelevant to our free-floating spirituality. We see nothing in the body but sensations, a physicality that has nothing to do with our “spirit,” our true self, the “real me.”
Often in the hours that precede a slow, lingering death, especially when the dying person is comatose, I hear someone say, “That (meaning the body) is not him. He is not here anymore.” The awful scene of bodily failure is divorced from the person who inhabits those arms and legs and face.
There is, at every deathbed scene, a climactic moment when finally death arrives. Breathing stops, the machines are, yes, unplugged, and grief arrives in the heart. This moment may seem like the final act in mortality’s drama. Yet, in a real sense for Christians, death does not “end” with death. That is where it begins. Christian death, death modeled after Christ, may begin when the body dies but has its ending at the tomb, in the dirt.
More than funerals, more than eulogies or sermons or prayers, it is the committal service that anchors a truly Christian view of physical death. The disciplines, rules, and prayers associated with the committal of Christian bodies to the ground confess what the Church teaches about the death of the baptized. Where it is still practiced and has not been twisted by the indulgent egotism that has destroyed much funeral making, in the committal service, one may truly glimpse the meaning of Christian death.
With the reading of Psalms, with shouts of victory, the congregation moves to a hole in the dirt, a casket poised to disappear. All the attention at this point is directed to the dead body. The focus of the rite is not to point to a vague, continuing spiritual existence or to imagine where our loved one “really” is right now, but to consider the remains, the resting place of God-made bones and skin and hair.
We commend the body to rest, hoping in the return of Jesus Christ and the final vindication of God’s creation, now ruined. Here is the antidote to talk of IVs and respirators and morphine. Here the body is buried in the ground like Jesus. Dust to dust. Here we cast all our hope on the God who creates out of nothing, who created bodies from the same dirt that now receives them. Here the final likeness to Jesus that we know in this life is reached: buried in our baptism, buried in our death, just like him.
Final Triumph
Here finally is the real triumph over death, not through chemotherapy or catheters but faith. “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting,” we say, even as that body, completely lifeless and void, is swallowed by the earth. Swallowed, consumed, digested even, but not defeated. For, as the committal reminds us, God the Father made that body, God the Son redeemed that body with his blood, and the Holy Spirit made it his temple.
Placing the body in the ground is not the final sadness but the last defiance, for we go to the graveyard believing that on that great Easter to come it will be as St. Matthew says, that the tombs will break open and the bodies of the saints will rise to life.
Preacher, they are going to pull the plug. I think you better come over here.” When I hear these words, I recall the familiar terror at having yet again to face death. Not death in a book or as a faraway thought that “yes, people die,” but death coming to someone I know well, death that I will witness in a matter of hours.
I know that death will grab that family on the inside and squeeze from them emotions and grief they did not know they possessed. This family will look to me, the preacher, to speak, to say something.
But I also wonder at the choice of words. “Pulling the plug.” It is a phrase that has become more and more associated with the last moments of human life. The dear Christian woman who called me was not speaking of a dishwasher or a computer but a person, a man she loved, one whose death would break her heart. Yet she used sterile and mechanistic words to announce his coming death. They are pulling the plug.
No More Angels
Increasingly, the experience of death and even, yes, specifically Christian death (that is, Christians dying with Christians there to witness it) is mostly filled not with moments of meditation on Scripture, nor with prayer, nor even with bittersweet memories. No, the hours of passing are used up staring at computer screens that spit out mysterious data we barely understand but think somehow to be crucial.
Even if we are dying at home, we discuss medical issues, pain thresholds, internal organ performance. We watch our loved ones die while watching heart rates and oxygen levels and commenting on the fluctuations of blood pressure and kidney function. We die in hospitals and hospice care where the (mostly caring and loving) attendants adjust morphine levels and our ears are filled with the relentless hum of machines and IV drips. “His blood pressure dropped 10 points last hour. Might be the end.” “Can’t be long. His kidneys have shut down.”
Death comes to us not as angels carrying the soul to distant shores, not as a grim reaper grabbing his prey, not even as one falling asleep. Death comes as system failure, the machine of the body coming to a stop—as planned obsolescence. The doctors and attendants chronicle and interpret the confusing river of numbers and levels and screens with jaggedy lines scrolling on and on.
Healthcare workers are today’s high priests of death, the mediators between us and our loved ones, now patched into the machine of technological medicine, the machine that promises life and ultimately eases our way to mortality. The room becomes suddenly hushed when the one with the stethoscope enters. We watch his movements as carefully as primitive believers watch the gyrations of a witch doctor. Every move is analyzed, we are intensely curious about every word and gesture of the “medical professional,” every body part touched, every machine adjusted. His words are analyzed and pondered.
When we come to questions of death and dying, it is doctors and medical professionals who supply the answers. They speak of potassium levels and respirators and how sorry they are.
A philosophy professor I had in college once commented on how the dominant technology of the day becomes the dominant image we have of our mind and rationality and the workings of our bodies. If gears and pulleys run our machines, we tend to think of ourselves in terms of gears and pulleys.
If planting, harvest, and weather make up our way of life, elements like air and fire and water will suffice to explain the mystery of the human body. If computers or chemicals dominate our work and study, we frame our thinking about our bodies in terms of chemistry and computing. We are so sure that this is indeed the way our bodies work, and then the next age giggles at our simplicity and replaces the image.
Barren Perceptions
It is this way with death. We carry our frames of reference and images to the sickbed. Experiencing death these days is not only a matter of dying in antiseptic hospitals with “do not resuscitate” orders and a mindset that views us as natural systems or machines. We ourselves see things this way.
When we see someone die, it looks like something to us, like something an awful lot like a car engine sputtering when short of fuel or a computer going through its programmed checklist as it shuts itself off. At the threshold of death we do not battle a medical establishment or a naturalistic worldview crashing into piety; we confront our own barren perceptions of the human body and the moment of death.
The actual moment of death has always been viewed as a compressed, pregnant slice of time that distills the essence of that life which is ending. What happens in the last moments of life, the way in which a person dies, is of deep interest to those who live on. Those who grieve, whether devout or not, insist on telling the story of how the loved one died. Those last moments are instinctively held to be important, worthy of being recounted.
The Church has felt this as well. The last moments of the martyrs, filled though they may have been with intense suffering, were seen and proclaimed as physical messages of sanctity. The smell of Polycarp’s flesh burning was experienced as the sweet smell of incense.
The moments of death were messages that captured the essence of the person. The fate of the body carried a spiritual message. Gregory Nazianzus reported that his father died with the words and forms of the liturgy on his lips, thus displaying the content of his character for all to see. What was true of him in life showed itself in his physical posture at death.
Athanasius commented on the feet of St. Antony at his time of death that Antony lifted them up as to greet friends who were coming to him. The opponents of Luther insisted that his death had been a wretched one as his heresy finally racked his body at the moment of truth, while Lutherans still today repeat his last words as a summary of his life and teachings, “We are all beggars.”
What is common to all these last moments is the connection between the spiritual life and the physical life, the interpenetration, if you will, of soul and body. Many people once believed that the actions of the body at the crucial time of death were a reliable window into the state of the soul.
It is this connection between body and soul that we are increasingly unable to make. What we see when someone dies is more and more just a thing that stops working. We pull the plug. In the same way, we swap organs and tranfuse blood without much thought. The body has ceased to be a reliable and holy text on which to read the soul.
Climactic Death
What happens to the body is irrelevant to our free-floating spirituality. We see nothing in the body but sensations, a physicality that has nothing to do with our “spirit,” our true self, the “real me.”
Often in the hours that precede a slow, lingering death, especially when the dying person is comatose, I hear someone say, “That (meaning the body) is not him. He is not here anymore.” The awful scene of bodily failure is divorced from the person who inhabits those arms and legs and face.
There is, at every deathbed scene, a climactic moment when finally death arrives. Breathing stops, the machines are, yes, unplugged, and grief arrives in the heart. This moment may seem like the final act in mortality’s drama. Yet, in a real sense for Christians, death does not “end” with death. That is where it begins. Christian death, death modeled after Christ, may begin when the body dies but has its ending at the tomb, in the dirt.
More than funerals, more than eulogies or sermons or prayers, it is the committal service that anchors a truly Christian view of physical death. The disciplines, rules, and prayers associated with the committal of Christian bodies to the ground confess what the Church teaches about the death of the baptized. Where it is still practiced and has not been twisted by the indulgent egotism that has destroyed much funeral making, in the committal service, one may truly glimpse the meaning of Christian death.
With the reading of Psalms, with shouts of victory, the congregation moves to a hole in the dirt, a casket poised to disappear. All the attention at this point is directed to the dead body. The focus of the rite is not to point to a vague, continuing spiritual existence or to imagine where our loved one “really” is right now, but to consider the remains, the resting place of God-made bones and skin and hair.
We commend the body to rest, hoping in the return of Jesus Christ and the final vindication of God’s creation, now ruined. Here is the antidote to talk of IVs and respirators and morphine. Here the body is buried in the ground like Jesus. Dust to dust. Here we cast all our hope on the God who creates out of nothing, who created bodies from the same dirt that now receives them. Here the final likeness to Jesus that we know in this life is reached: buried in our baptism, buried in our death, just like him.
Final Triumph
Here finally is the real triumph over death, not through chemotherapy or catheters but faith. “I believe in the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting,” we say, even as that body, completely lifeless and void, is swallowed by the earth. Swallowed, consumed, digested even, but not defeated. For, as the committal reminds us, God the Father made that body, God the Son redeemed that body with his blood, and the Holy Spirit made it his temple.
Placing the body in the ground is not the final sadness but the last defiance, for we go to the graveyard believing that on that great Easter to come it will be as St. Matthew says, that the tombs will break open and the bodies of the saints will rise to life.
The great contraction
"The world seems a smaller place and less of it is mine."
I heard that in a song somewhere once. It speaks of growing up and looking back and realizing that as one gets older there are less possibilities. This is simply a product of living in a world of time, of the drip, drip, drip of moments come and gone.
From the moment we are born, the possibilities ahead of us contract. Each moment sets one on a path which eliminates all other possible paths. Life is one giant contraction. To decide to go one way means one can never go on the other journeys available at that moment. If one decides, at age eighteen, to go to NC State University, to use an example, one eliminates all the other roads for life and spouses and jobs and experience which would have led through, say, UNC Chapel Hill or Duke or Clemson, etc. This is true for every single day of our lives.
It is in middle age that this awareness becomes particularly acute. The contraction becomes palpable. One begins to see in one's sights the pinpoint toward which all our days are converging. The number of decisions one still has to make in the future dwindles. The contraction continues until at the moment of death the self becomes a single point of consciousness. One must at the end let go of all family, friends, and all outside experience itself so that one becomes simply self itself. Finally even that point of light is darkened. The almost infinite possibilities present at birth end at that one dot, that moment where all else is gone.
The Christian faith, of course, has much to say about all this. The New Testament maintains that the giant contraction into that single moment is a funnel that opens into a vast field of light, the presence of God who is beyond time, the God who has entered time in Jesus and conquered its awful hold on us. The Christian faith maintains that the cross means that death, the awful loss of all things which goes on throughout life is for the faithful a gate into the possession of all things.
In dying we are forced to let go of all; in death we are are received into the hands of that One who has all things, past and present in a single eternal moment and who shares those things with us through the flesh of Jesus. The Christian faith maintains that the drip, drip, drip of grief, of the loss of each day is a journey towards the Man who conquered time, who redeemed and bought back what inexorably dribbles out of our hands.
All of that is by faith, we cannot feel it or know it in our bodies or senses. Believing it comes by the Word, the Psalms, preaching and the Eucharist. All our experience screams it isn't true. Death comes, the body decays. The great contraction continues. We must pray and beg God for faith.
I heard that in a song somewhere once. It speaks of growing up and looking back and realizing that as one gets older there are less possibilities. This is simply a product of living in a world of time, of the drip, drip, drip of moments come and gone.
From the moment we are born, the possibilities ahead of us contract. Each moment sets one on a path which eliminates all other possible paths. Life is one giant contraction. To decide to go one way means one can never go on the other journeys available at that moment. If one decides, at age eighteen, to go to NC State University, to use an example, one eliminates all the other roads for life and spouses and jobs and experience which would have led through, say, UNC Chapel Hill or Duke or Clemson, etc. This is true for every single day of our lives.
It is in middle age that this awareness becomes particularly acute. The contraction becomes palpable. One begins to see in one's sights the pinpoint toward which all our days are converging. The number of decisions one still has to make in the future dwindles. The contraction continues until at the moment of death the self becomes a single point of consciousness. One must at the end let go of all family, friends, and all outside experience itself so that one becomes simply self itself. Finally even that point of light is darkened. The almost infinite possibilities present at birth end at that one dot, that moment where all else is gone.
The Christian faith, of course, has much to say about all this. The New Testament maintains that the giant contraction into that single moment is a funnel that opens into a vast field of light, the presence of God who is beyond time, the God who has entered time in Jesus and conquered its awful hold on us. The Christian faith maintains that the cross means that death, the awful loss of all things which goes on throughout life is for the faithful a gate into the possession of all things.
In dying we are forced to let go of all; in death we are are received into the hands of that One who has all things, past and present in a single eternal moment and who shares those things with us through the flesh of Jesus. The Christian faith maintains that the drip, drip, drip of grief, of the loss of each day is a journey towards the Man who conquered time, who redeemed and bought back what inexorably dribbles out of our hands.
All of that is by faith, we cannot feel it or know it in our bodies or senses. Believing it comes by the Word, the Psalms, preaching and the Eucharist. All our experience screams it isn't true. Death comes, the body decays. The great contraction continues. We must pray and beg God for faith.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
Gastronomy in the way of the Gospel
Is cool whip okay to eat by itself?
This was a search phase that led to my blog.
I want to declare to this lonely soul: yes, yes, a thousand times, yes!
That is why God made Cool Whip : for people like you and me to sneak to the fridge late at night with a giant spoon and our wives not listening and ... enjoy!
Monday, April 27, 2009
Prothero: America Post Christian? Not Even Close
Post-Christian? Not even close.
Post-Christian? Not even close.
A high-profile ‘religious landscape’ survey is said to show that America is rapidly losing its faith in Christianity. One problem: It’s not so.
By Stephen Prothero
In the endless debate over whether the United States is a Christian nation, the "ayes" no longer seem to have it.
The "ayes" might have the 1892 Supreme Court ruling describing the United States as a "Christian nation," but the "nays" have the Treaty of Tripoli of 1797, which affirmed that "the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
Now comes President Obama, who in January in his inaugural address spoke of this country as "a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers." On April 6 in Turkey, Obama added that the United States "does not consider itself a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation" but "a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."
(Illustration by Suzy Parker/ USA TODAY)
One week later, in a mournful black-and-red cover reminiscent of Time magazine's 1966 "Is God Dead?" cover, Newsweek proclaimed "The Decline and Fall of Christian America." Setting off this alarm was the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), released in March by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. This survey of more than 50,000 American adults contains all sorts of interesting tidbits about the rapid growth of Islam in America, and the relative strength of new religious movements such as Wicca. It tells us that Pentecostals are more likely to be divorced than the average American, and that Mormons are far more likely to be married. But almost all the news coverage this survey has garnered, both at home and abroad, speaks of the gains of the religiously unattached (or "nones" as they are often called) at the expense of Christianity.
Prior ARIS surveys were conducted in 1990 and 2001, and according to the co-authors of this report — Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar of Trinity College's Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture — the trend line for Christians looks disturbingly like the Dow Jones of recent memory. From 1990 to 2008, the portion of American adults who self-identify as Christians has dropped 10 percentage points (from 86% to 76%), while the portion of those who report no religious affiliation has almost doubled — from 8% to 15%. The "nones," it seems, are routing the nuns.
But are they?
Rhetoric vs. analysis
What makes this secularization angle plausible is the fact that it aligns quite well with the desires of atheists and evangelicals alike. The so-called new atheists want to see Christianity on the retreat because to them, religion is poisonous idiocy. But born-again Christians like the faith-on-the-run story, too, because it makes their centuries-old call to re-Christianize the country only more urgent.
Newsweek editor Jon Meacham begins his cover story with a series of quotations from R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who offers the same sad story of Christian declension that American Christians have been telling since roughly the moment the Pilgrims first clambered over Plymouth Rock. "The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered," Mohler says. "The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture."
Unfortunately, many who have written on the new ARIS survey have mistaken such timeless rhetoric for timely analysis. The fact of the matter is that only a small portion of the "nones" is truly secular. This information isn't in the ARIS report, but when I called Keysar in an effort to dig deeper into the beliefs and behaviors of the religiously unattached, she told me that when asked about God, 23% of the "nones" said they believed in a higher power and 21% pledged their allegiance to a personal God. A parallel survey released in 2006 by Baylor University found that almost two-thirds (63%) of Americans who claim no religious affiliation believe in God, and another third (36%) said they prayed at least occasionally. Finally, a 2008 Pew Forum study found that 41% of the religiously unaffiliated nonetheless describe religion as either very important or somewhat important in their lives. "Nones" are by no means non-believers.
What the rise of the "nones" shows us is not how American Christianity is declining but how it is changing. The data tell us that Christians are increasingly likely to describe themselves as spiritual rather than religious, that they are increasingly wary of labels and institutions, and that they identify their faith less and less with "organized religion" and more and more with the personal power of Jesus himself.
What the data do not tell us is that the United States is becoming "post-Christian." If you meet a random American walking down the street, the odds are only one in 62 that he or she will self-identify as atheist or agnostic. And even if we accept the ARIS survey as gospel, the United States today has more Christians than any other country in human history. The current U.S. population is more Christian than Israel is Jewish and Utah is Mormon. Meanwhile, Christianity remains, for good or for ill, a vital political force, not just on the right but also on the left, and the Christian Bible remains the scripture of American politics, invoked thousands of times a year on the floor of the U.S. Congress.
In the classroom
Over the past two decades, I have taught the "Christian America" debate to hundreds of students in my Religious Studies courses. When we finish our discussion, I call the question. My Christian students almost invariably describe the United States as a multicultural nation of religions, but my Jewish students tell me you have to be blind (or Christian) not to see that this is a Christian country. Here Christmas, not Passover, is a national holiday, and the only question about our presidents' religious affiliation seems to be from which Christian denomination they will come.
Mark Silk, who runs Trinity College's Program on Public Values, which released the latest ARIS report, agrees that the news media were napping when they spun secularization straw out of the gold in this report. For him, the rise of the "nones" is old news. From 1990 to 2001, the portion of those who said "none" when asked, "What is your religion, if any?" jumped from 8.2% to 14.1%. Over the past seven years, that figure basically flatlined, rising less than a percentage point to 15.0%.
The real news in this data, Silk says, is a shift in the center of gravity of U.S. Catholicism from the Northeast to the Southwest, and in the process from whites to Hispanics. The other big story, he told me, is the continued displacement of mainline Protestants by born-again Christians, who now constitute 34% of the U.S. population. The "non-denominational Christian" category that populates U.S. megachurches has exploded from under 200,000 in 1990 to 2.5 million in 2001 to in excess of 8 million today.
When I remarked that this hardly looks like a picture of a post-Christian country, Silk, who edits a newsletter called "Religion and the News," agreed, but warned me not to be too hopeful about diverting this story midstream. "You can tell the truth," he said, "just don't expect anybody to pay attention."
Stephen Prothero is the chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University and the author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — And Doesn't.
Post-Christian? Not even close.
A high-profile ‘religious landscape’ survey is said to show that America is rapidly losing its faith in Christianity. One problem: It’s not so.
By Stephen Prothero
In the endless debate over whether the United States is a Christian nation, the "ayes" no longer seem to have it.
The "ayes" might have the 1892 Supreme Court ruling describing the United States as a "Christian nation," but the "nays" have the Treaty of Tripoli of 1797, which affirmed that "the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
Now comes President Obama, who in January in his inaugural address spoke of this country as "a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus — and non-believers." On April 6 in Turkey, Obama added that the United States "does not consider itself a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation" but "a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."
(Illustration by Suzy Parker/ USA TODAY)
One week later, in a mournful black-and-red cover reminiscent of Time magazine's 1966 "Is God Dead?" cover, Newsweek proclaimed "The Decline and Fall of Christian America." Setting off this alarm was the 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS), released in March by researchers at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. This survey of more than 50,000 American adults contains all sorts of interesting tidbits about the rapid growth of Islam in America, and the relative strength of new religious movements such as Wicca. It tells us that Pentecostals are more likely to be divorced than the average American, and that Mormons are far more likely to be married. But almost all the news coverage this survey has garnered, both at home and abroad, speaks of the gains of the religiously unattached (or "nones" as they are often called) at the expense of Christianity.
Prior ARIS surveys were conducted in 1990 and 2001, and according to the co-authors of this report — Barry Kosmin and Ariela Keysar of Trinity College's Institute for the Study of Secularism in Society and Culture — the trend line for Christians looks disturbingly like the Dow Jones of recent memory. From 1990 to 2008, the portion of American adults who self-identify as Christians has dropped 10 percentage points (from 86% to 76%), while the portion of those who report no religious affiliation has almost doubled — from 8% to 15%. The "nones," it seems, are routing the nuns.
But are they?
Rhetoric vs. analysis
What makes this secularization angle plausible is the fact that it aligns quite well with the desires of atheists and evangelicals alike. The so-called new atheists want to see Christianity on the retreat because to them, religion is poisonous idiocy. But born-again Christians like the faith-on-the-run story, too, because it makes their centuries-old call to re-Christianize the country only more urgent.
Newsweek editor Jon Meacham begins his cover story with a series of quotations from R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, who offers the same sad story of Christian declension that American Christians have been telling since roughly the moment the Pilgrims first clambered over Plymouth Rock. "The most basic contours of American culture have been radically altered," Mohler says. "The so-called Judeo-Christian consensus of the last millennium has given way to a post-modern, post-Christian, post-Western cultural crisis which threatens the very heart of our culture."
Unfortunately, many who have written on the new ARIS survey have mistaken such timeless rhetoric for timely analysis. The fact of the matter is that only a small portion of the "nones" is truly secular. This information isn't in the ARIS report, but when I called Keysar in an effort to dig deeper into the beliefs and behaviors of the religiously unattached, she told me that when asked about God, 23% of the "nones" said they believed in a higher power and 21% pledged their allegiance to a personal God. A parallel survey released in 2006 by Baylor University found that almost two-thirds (63%) of Americans who claim no religious affiliation believe in God, and another third (36%) said they prayed at least occasionally. Finally, a 2008 Pew Forum study found that 41% of the religiously unaffiliated nonetheless describe religion as either very important or somewhat important in their lives. "Nones" are by no means non-believers.
What the rise of the "nones" shows us is not how American Christianity is declining but how it is changing. The data tell us that Christians are increasingly likely to describe themselves as spiritual rather than religious, that they are increasingly wary of labels and institutions, and that they identify their faith less and less with "organized religion" and more and more with the personal power of Jesus himself.
What the data do not tell us is that the United States is becoming "post-Christian." If you meet a random American walking down the street, the odds are only one in 62 that he or she will self-identify as atheist or agnostic. And even if we accept the ARIS survey as gospel, the United States today has more Christians than any other country in human history. The current U.S. population is more Christian than Israel is Jewish and Utah is Mormon. Meanwhile, Christianity remains, for good or for ill, a vital political force, not just on the right but also on the left, and the Christian Bible remains the scripture of American politics, invoked thousands of times a year on the floor of the U.S. Congress.
In the classroom
Over the past two decades, I have taught the "Christian America" debate to hundreds of students in my Religious Studies courses. When we finish our discussion, I call the question. My Christian students almost invariably describe the United States as a multicultural nation of religions, but my Jewish students tell me you have to be blind (or Christian) not to see that this is a Christian country. Here Christmas, not Passover, is a national holiday, and the only question about our presidents' religious affiliation seems to be from which Christian denomination they will come.
Mark Silk, who runs Trinity College's Program on Public Values, which released the latest ARIS report, agrees that the news media were napping when they spun secularization straw out of the gold in this report. For him, the rise of the "nones" is old news. From 1990 to 2001, the portion of those who said "none" when asked, "What is your religion, if any?" jumped from 8.2% to 14.1%. Over the past seven years, that figure basically flatlined, rising less than a percentage point to 15.0%.
The real news in this data, Silk says, is a shift in the center of gravity of U.S. Catholicism from the Northeast to the Southwest, and in the process from whites to Hispanics. The other big story, he told me, is the continued displacement of mainline Protestants by born-again Christians, who now constitute 34% of the U.S. population. The "non-denominational Christian" category that populates U.S. megachurches has exploded from under 200,000 in 1990 to 2.5 million in 2001 to in excess of 8 million today.
When I remarked that this hardly looks like a picture of a post-Christian country, Silk, who edits a newsletter called "Religion and the News," agreed, but warned me not to be too hopeful about diverting this story midstream. "You can tell the truth," he said, "just don't expect anybody to pay attention."
Stephen Prothero is the chair of the Department of Religion at Boston University and the author of Religious Literacy: What Every American Needs to Know — And Doesn't.
Half of U.S. adults have switched religions
Survey: Half of U.S. adults have switched religions
Here is part of the article (which suffers from the common confusion between denomination and religion)
More than half of all Americans have switched religions at least once, according to an in-depth survey released today.
And that may still be "a conservative estimate," says Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
FAITH & REASON: Does economy affect worship attendance?
AMERICAN RELIGIOUS IDENTIFICATION SURVEY: See how other survey shows change in religions over 2 decades
Pew's new Faith in Flux survey is based on re-contacting 2,800 people from its U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, released last year, which surveyed 35,000 people.
Key findings:
FIND MORE STORIES IN: United States | Massachusetts
•The reasons people give for changing their religion — or leaving religion altogether — differ widely depending on the origin and destination of the convert: 71% of Catholics and nearly 60% of Protestants who switched to another religion didn't think their spiritual needs were being met or they just liked another faith more, or they chainged their views on religious or moral beliefs.
•Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss in the process of religious change: Those who have quit the church, 10% of U.S. adults, vastly outnumber incoming Catholics, 2.6% of adults. Two in three of Catholics who became unaffiliated and half of those who became Protestant say they left the church because they "stopped believing its teachings." The sexual abuse scandal was a factor for fewer than three in 10 former Catholics.
•Life circumstances, not religious doctrinal differences, prompt most Protestants who switch denominational families (Baptist to Methodist, for example). Relocating to a new community (nearly four in 10) or marrying someone of a different tradition are the most oft-cited reasons. However, 36% cited "likes and dislikes about religious institutions, practices and people."
•Many people who left a religion to become unaffiliated say they did so, in part, because they think of religious people as hypocritical or judgmental, because religious organizations focus too much on rules or because religious leaders are too focused on power and money.
•Among the 16% of Americans who say they are now unaffiliated with any religion, most are former Protestants and Catholics who say they didn't quit in a huff or get lured away by science or by atheist philosophy. About 70% say "they just gradually drifted away" from their childhood religion.
•Some people (16%) return to the fold, saying they tried another religion or two but are now back in the faith of their childhood.
"Combined with the 44% of the public that currently espouses a religion different than their childhood faith, this means that roughly half of the U.S. adult population has changed religion at some point in their life," the report says.
Here is part of the article (which suffers from the common confusion between denomination and religion)
More than half of all Americans have switched religions at least once, according to an in-depth survey released today.
And that may still be "a conservative estimate," says Luis Lugo, director of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.
FAITH & REASON: Does economy affect worship attendance?
AMERICAN RELIGIOUS IDENTIFICATION SURVEY: See how other survey shows change in religions over 2 decades
Pew's new Faith in Flux survey is based on re-contacting 2,800 people from its U.S. Religious Landscape Survey, released last year, which surveyed 35,000 people.
Key findings:
FIND MORE STORIES IN: United States | Massachusetts
•The reasons people give for changing their religion — or leaving religion altogether — differ widely depending on the origin and destination of the convert: 71% of Catholics and nearly 60% of Protestants who switched to another religion didn't think their spiritual needs were being met or they just liked another faith more, or they chainged their views on religious or moral beliefs.
•Catholicism has suffered the greatest net loss in the process of religious change: Those who have quit the church, 10% of U.S. adults, vastly outnumber incoming Catholics, 2.6% of adults. Two in three of Catholics who became unaffiliated and half of those who became Protestant say they left the church because they "stopped believing its teachings." The sexual abuse scandal was a factor for fewer than three in 10 former Catholics.
•Life circumstances, not religious doctrinal differences, prompt most Protestants who switch denominational families (Baptist to Methodist, for example). Relocating to a new community (nearly four in 10) or marrying someone of a different tradition are the most oft-cited reasons. However, 36% cited "likes and dislikes about religious institutions, practices and people."
•Many people who left a religion to become unaffiliated say they did so, in part, because they think of religious people as hypocritical or judgmental, because religious organizations focus too much on rules or because religious leaders are too focused on power and money.
•Among the 16% of Americans who say they are now unaffiliated with any religion, most are former Protestants and Catholics who say they didn't quit in a huff or get lured away by science or by atheist philosophy. About 70% say "they just gradually drifted away" from their childhood religion.
•Some people (16%) return to the fold, saying they tried another religion or two but are now back in the faith of their childhood.
"Combined with the 44% of the public that currently espouses a religion different than their childhood faith, this means that roughly half of the U.S. adult population has changed religion at some point in their life," the report says.
Some Graham Greene
Graham Greene and about Graham Greene:
1. Nobody has ever wanted to be a Graham Greene character.
2. After the death of Henry James, according to Greene, "the religious sense was lost to the English novel, and with the religious sense went the sense of the importance of the human act."
3. "Poor Crabbin. Poor all of us, when you come to think of it."
4. "the awful strangeness of the mercy of God."
From this review of a collection of his letters.
1. Nobody has ever wanted to be a Graham Greene character.
2. After the death of Henry James, according to Greene, "the religious sense was lost to the English novel, and with the religious sense went the sense of the importance of the human act."
3. "Poor Crabbin. Poor all of us, when you come to think of it."
4. "the awful strangeness of the mercy of God."
From this review of a collection of his letters.
Pascal must have been on Facebook and Twitter
The sensibility of man to trifles, and his insensibility to great things, indicates a strange inversion.
Blaise Pascal, Pensees
Blaise Pascal, Pensees
Saturday, April 25, 2009
You learn the Catechism because you are going to die
I am reading Albrecht Peters' Commentary on Luther's Catechism, Volume One, the Ten Commandments. It is an excellent resource and full of insights. Here is one:
The catechism moves Scripture, the confession of the Church, and our daily life into the light of the Last Day.
Unlike the humanist educational tradition that found its way into the Lutheran Church from Erasmus via Melanchthon, but also unlike the confessionalist hardening, Luther does not offer a miniature dogmatics textbook nor even a “popular abstract of the entire doctrine of faith and morals.”
Rather, he consciously focused on what was necessary for life and death, on
the iron ration, as it were. This is why we do well always to keep the beginning of Luther’s 1522 Invocavit Sermons in mind: “The summons of death comes to us all, and no one can die for another. Every one must fight his own battle with death by himself, alone. . . . Therefore, every one for himself must know and be armed with the chief things that concern a Christian.”
Columbine : The Book
You may think you know all you need to know about the Columbine school killings but you probably don't. I just finished reading a new book, Columbine, by Dave Cullen on the shootings and I recommend it. It shatters the myths surrounding the shootings ( including the Christian martyr, Cassie Bernall ... sorry it didn't happen) and is an excellent example of the best kind of investigative journalism.
The portrait of Eric Harris as a psychopath in the clinical, precise meaning of the word is chilling, scary.
ARTICLES OF CLOTHING THAT GO WELL WITH DISTRESSED JEANS
an anxious sweater vest
passive-aggressive penny loafers
a letterman's jacket full of regret
a belt suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder
suspenders
From McSweeneys
passive-aggressive penny loafers
a letterman's jacket full of regret
a belt suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder
suspenders
From McSweeneys
Friday, April 24, 2009
The Vatican board game
Under the category, "No, I am not making this up: Vatican: The Papal Election Board Game. This item comes from the new blog at First Things called "Icons and Curiosities" where the bloggers present strange items items in the Christian marketplace.
This one qualifies.
During the course of their careers, players “Take a Stand” on weighty theological and moral issues, including contraception, clerical celibacy or the campaign to have the Virgin Mary proclaimed co-redeemer. The race begins as soon as the previous papacy ends, sometimes in bizarre circumstances. “The Pope dies when the popemobile rolls over after hitting a truck carrying bananas. Your earlier warnings that the popemobile was unstable are now seen as evidence of your sound judgement and you gain additional support,” reads one card.
Players must seek to climb the ladder to spiritual perfection while simultaneously avoiding the “Cesspool of Sin,” by not, for example, committing the “Sin of Gluttony: at a papal banquet, you have three helpings of cannelloni.” . . . But when it comes to the conclave itself, other cardinals will be waiting for you to slip up: “Your tendency to fall asleep during meetings becomes a cause for comment”, one card reads, while another simply says: “Your poor command of Latin is noted and commented on by a number of cardinals—minus 10 votes.”
Thursday, April 23, 2009
God continues to mock me ...
I occasionally post various items of theological and intellectual depth. Not very deep, I realize, but somewhat.
But my two most popular blog posts of all time continue to be the neat picture of a cool whip container and the lost Eucharistic anthem of the 70's : "Sons of God, hear his holy word". ( here and here and here). My musings on the nature of church, grace and sin and salvation? Nope. Church fathers, Luther, theology? Nah. Cool Whip and bad worship songs.
Ah, blogging is so important.
But my two most popular blog posts of all time continue to be the neat picture of a cool whip container and the lost Eucharistic anthem of the 70's : "Sons of God, hear his holy word". ( here and here and here). My musings on the nature of church, grace and sin and salvation? Nope. Church fathers, Luther, theology? Nah. Cool Whip and bad worship songs.
Ah, blogging is so important.
More quotes ... all Graham Greene
A petty reason perhaps why novelists more and more try to keep a distance from journalists is that novelists are trying to write the truth and journalists are trying to write fiction.
Graham Greene
My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.
Graham Greene
( I agree with Mr. Greene here completely. I cannot think while trying to operate a keyboard thus the poverty of this blog. I write my sermons longhand. With a good pen.)
Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil - or else an absolute ignorance.
Graham Greene
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
Graham Greene
Graham Greene
My two fingers on a typewriter have never connected with my brain. My hand on a pen does. A fountain pen, of course. Ball-point pens are only good for filling out forms on a plane.
Graham Greene
( I agree with Mr. Greene here completely. I cannot think while trying to operate a keyboard thus the poverty of this blog. I write my sermons longhand. With a good pen.)
Point me out the happy man and I will point you out either egotism, selfishness, evil - or else an absolute ignorance.
Graham Greene
Writing is a form of therapy; sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, melancholia, the panic and fear which is inherent in a human situation.
Graham Greene
Random quotes
Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness... and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient enough to amuse him.
Blaise Pascal
The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.
Walker Percy
What she didn't understand, she being spiritual and seeing religion as spirit, was that it took religion to save me from the spirit world, from orbiting the earth like Lucifer and the angels, that it took nothing less than touching the thread off the misty interstates and eating Christ himself to make me mortal man again and let me inhabit my own flesh and love her in the morning.”
Walker Percy
Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane.
Philip K. Dick
Blaise Pascal
The search is what anyone would undertake if he were not sunk in the everydayness of his own life. To become aware of the possibility of the search is to be onto something. Not to be onto something is to be in despair.
Walker Percy
What she didn't understand, she being spiritual and seeing religion as spirit, was that it took religion to save me from the spirit world, from orbiting the earth like Lucifer and the angels, that it took nothing less than touching the thread off the misty interstates and eating Christ himself to make me mortal man again and let me inhabit my own flesh and love her in the morning.”
Walker Percy
Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane.
Philip K. Dick
Wednesday, April 22, 2009
His biography really is a series of unfortunate events
This is a nice review article on Edgar Allan Poe.
“My whole existence has been the merest Romance,” Poe wrote, the year before his death, “in the sense of the most utter unworldliness.” This is Byronic bunk. Poe’s life was tragic, but he was about as unworldly as a bale of cotton. Poe’s world was Andrew Jackson’s America, a world of banking collapse, financial panic, and grinding depression that had a particularly devastating effect on the publishing industry, where Poe sought a perch.
His biography really is a series of unfortunate events. But two of those events were transatlantic financial crises: the Panic of 1819 and the Panic of 1837, the pit and the pendulum of the antebellum economy. Poe died at the end of a decade known, in Europe, as “the Hungry Forties,” and he wasn’t the only American to fall face down in the gutter during a seven-year-long depression brought on by a credit collapse. He did not live out of time. He lived in hard times, dark times, up-and-down times. Indigence cast a shadow over everything he attempted. Poverty was his raven, tapping at the door, and it was Poe, not the bird, who uttered, helplessly, another rhyme for “Nevermore.”
“I send you an original tale,” Poe once began a letter, and, at its end, added one line more: “P.S. I am poor.”
“My whole existence has been the merest Romance,” Poe wrote, the year before his death, “in the sense of the most utter unworldliness.” This is Byronic bunk. Poe’s life was tragic, but he was about as unworldly as a bale of cotton. Poe’s world was Andrew Jackson’s America, a world of banking collapse, financial panic, and grinding depression that had a particularly devastating effect on the publishing industry, where Poe sought a perch.
His biography really is a series of unfortunate events. But two of those events were transatlantic financial crises: the Panic of 1819 and the Panic of 1837, the pit and the pendulum of the antebellum economy. Poe died at the end of a decade known, in Europe, as “the Hungry Forties,” and he wasn’t the only American to fall face down in the gutter during a seven-year-long depression brought on by a credit collapse. He did not live out of time. He lived in hard times, dark times, up-and-down times. Indigence cast a shadow over everything he attempted. Poverty was his raven, tapping at the door, and it was Poe, not the bird, who uttered, helplessly, another rhyme for “Nevermore.”
“I send you an original tale,” Poe once began a letter, and, at its end, added one line more: “P.S. I am poor.”
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
It is we who are exalted in that Righteousness
Athanasius of Alexandria is the great doctor of Christ’s divinity. In so doing he unlocks the key to much of our Easter and resurrection joy. The key is that most Lutheran of phrases “for us”. In a greatly simplified way, Athanasius thinks like this:
All Christ does is in the flesh is “for us”. This is so according to Athansius because, simply put, Jesus is God. He does not do anything for himself for he has and has created all things. He has no need of anything. He does not keep the law for himself for He is the perfect God. He does not die for himself for He is the living God. He does not return to life because He is always living as God. He does not ascend to heaven for himself for as God he never left heaven.
All this is for us. What happens to the human nature happens to us. It is, in Lutheran talk, pure Gospel and it is so precisely because of Christ’s divinity. Christ’s divinity excludes any notion that Christ is being exalted or risen for his own sake. There is no “for his own sake” in Christ because he is God. All he does he does for us. All Scriptures references of humiliation or exaltation or change or the like are referred to the human nature. This may seem like Biblical or philosophical minutiae. It isn’t. Because all such things are referred to his human nature they are referred to us. We rise in Christ. We ascend. We are glorified.
Let Athanasius say it for himself:
But if now for us the Christ is entered into heaven itself, though He was even before and always Lord and Framer of the heavens, for us therefore is that present exaltation written. And as He Himself, who sanctifies all, says also that He sanctifies Himself to the Father for our sakes, not that the Word may become holy, but that He Himself may in Himself sanctify all of us, in like manner we must take the present phrase, 'He highly exalted Him,' not that He Himself should be exalted, for He is the highest, but that He may become righteousness for us , and we may be exalted in Him, and that we may enter the gates of heaven, which He has also opened for us, the forerunners saying, 'Lift up your gates, O you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in .'
For here also not on Him were shut the gates, as being Lord and Maker of all, but because of us is this too written, to whom the door of paradise was shut. And therefore in a human relation, because of the flesh which He bore, it is said of Him, 'Lift up your gates,' and 'shall come in,' as if a man were entering; but in a divine relation on the other hand it is said of Him, since 'the Word was God,' that He is the 'Lord' and the 'King of Glory.'
Such our exaltation the Spirit foreannounced in the eighty-ninth Psalm, saying, 'And in Your righteousness shall they be exalted, for You are the glory of their strength .' And if the Son be Righteousness, then He is not exalted as being Himself in need, but it is we who are exalted in that Righteousness, which is He.
Four Discourse Against the Arians, 1, 41.
All Christ does is in the flesh is “for us”. This is so according to Athansius because, simply put, Jesus is God. He does not do anything for himself for he has and has created all things. He has no need of anything. He does not keep the law for himself for He is the perfect God. He does not die for himself for He is the living God. He does not return to life because He is always living as God. He does not ascend to heaven for himself for as God he never left heaven.
All this is for us. What happens to the human nature happens to us. It is, in Lutheran talk, pure Gospel and it is so precisely because of Christ’s divinity. Christ’s divinity excludes any notion that Christ is being exalted or risen for his own sake. There is no “for his own sake” in Christ because he is God. All he does he does for us. All Scriptures references of humiliation or exaltation or change or the like are referred to the human nature. This may seem like Biblical or philosophical minutiae. It isn’t. Because all such things are referred to his human nature they are referred to us. We rise in Christ. We ascend. We are glorified.
Let Athanasius say it for himself:
But if now for us the Christ is entered into heaven itself, though He was even before and always Lord and Framer of the heavens, for us therefore is that present exaltation written. And as He Himself, who sanctifies all, says also that He sanctifies Himself to the Father for our sakes, not that the Word may become holy, but that He Himself may in Himself sanctify all of us, in like manner we must take the present phrase, 'He highly exalted Him,' not that He Himself should be exalted, for He is the highest, but that He may become righteousness for us , and we may be exalted in Him, and that we may enter the gates of heaven, which He has also opened for us, the forerunners saying, 'Lift up your gates, O you rulers, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the King of Glory shall come in .'
For here also not on Him were shut the gates, as being Lord and Maker of all, but because of us is this too written, to whom the door of paradise was shut. And therefore in a human relation, because of the flesh which He bore, it is said of Him, 'Lift up your gates,' and 'shall come in,' as if a man were entering; but in a divine relation on the other hand it is said of Him, since 'the Word was God,' that He is the 'Lord' and the 'King of Glory.'
Such our exaltation the Spirit foreannounced in the eighty-ninth Psalm, saying, 'And in Your righteousness shall they be exalted, for You are the glory of their strength .' And if the Son be Righteousness, then He is not exalted as being Himself in need, but it is we who are exalted in that Righteousness, which is He.
Four Discourse Against the Arians, 1, 41.
Monday, April 20, 2009
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Man bites snake in epic struggle
Man bites snake in epic struggle
A Kenyan man bit a python which wrapped him in its coils and dragged him up a tree during a fierce three-hour struggle, police have told the BBC.
The serpent seized farm worker Ben Nyaumbe in the Malindi area of Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast at the weekend.
Mr Nyaumbe bit the snake on the tip of the tail during the exhausting battle in the village of Sabaki.
Police rescued Mr Nyaumbe and captured the 13ft (4m) reptile, before taking it to a sanctuary, but it later escaped.
The victim told police he managed to reach his mobile phone from his pocket to raise the alarm when the python momentarily eased its grip after hauling him up a tree on Saturday evening. . . .
“If it wasn’t for the villagers and officers who helped him, he would have been swallowed by the snake over the Easter holiday,” said Supt Katam.
He added: “It’s very mysterious, this ability to lift the man onto the tree. I’ve never heard of this before.”
HT: First Things
A Kenyan man bit a python which wrapped him in its coils and dragged him up a tree during a fierce three-hour struggle, police have told the BBC.
The serpent seized farm worker Ben Nyaumbe in the Malindi area of Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast at the weekend.
Mr Nyaumbe bit the snake on the tip of the tail during the exhausting battle in the village of Sabaki.
Police rescued Mr Nyaumbe and captured the 13ft (4m) reptile, before taking it to a sanctuary, but it later escaped.
The victim told police he managed to reach his mobile phone from his pocket to raise the alarm when the python momentarily eased its grip after hauling him up a tree on Saturday evening. . . .
“If it wasn’t for the villagers and officers who helped him, he would have been swallowed by the snake over the Easter holiday,” said Supt Katam.
He added: “It’s very mysterious, this ability to lift the man onto the tree. I’ve never heard of this before.”
HT: First Things
The water of Baptism is that pool
There was a pool near the sheep gate in Jerusalem. At certain times, an angel used to descend and turn the waters of it. Whoever descended into it first after the waters were turned was healed of whatever disease he had suffered (John 5:2-4). The water of Baptism is that pool which heals us from all the disease of sins when the Holy Spirit descends into it and turns it with the blood of Christ, who was made the [sacrificial] victim for us, just as the sheep to be sacrificed were also washed in that pool in Jerusalem. At Christ’s Baptism, the heavens were opened. Likewise, in our Baptism, the doors of heaven are opened. In Christ’s Baptism, the entire Most Holy Trinity was present (Matthew 3:16). So also, it is present in our Baptism. And so, in the words of promise that are joined with the element of water, faith receives the grace of the Father who adopts us, the merits of the Son who cleanses us, and the efficacy of the Holy Spirit who regenerates us.
Johann Gerhard, grabbed from here.
I've gotten pizza here ... yikes!
This is a heck of a way for your community to hit the big media. The New York Times. Conover is within a few miles of my home.
In videos posted on YouTube and elsewhere this week, a Domino’s employee in Conover, N.C., prepared sandwiches for delivery while putting cheese up his nose, nasal mucus on the sandwiches, and violating other health-code standards while a fellow employee provided narration.
In videos posted on YouTube and elsewhere this week, a Domino’s employee in Conover, N.C., prepared sandwiches for delivery while putting cheese up his nose, nasal mucus on the sandwiches, and violating other health-code standards while a fellow employee provided narration.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
The first thing a man remembers is longing
This is a fine paragraph from Walker Percy that describes the desire that is at the heart of our experience as fallen creatures.
The first thing a man remembers is longing and the last thing he is conscious of before death is exactly the same longing. I have never seen a man die who did not die in longing. When I was ten years old I woke up one summer morning to a sensation of longing. Besides the longing I was in love with a girl named Louise ... At the breakfast table I took a look at my father with his round head, his iron colored hair, his chipper red cheeks, and I wondered to myself: at what age does a man get over this longing?
The answer is, he doesn't.
Love in the Ruins
The first thing a man remembers is longing and the last thing he is conscious of before death is exactly the same longing. I have never seen a man die who did not die in longing. When I was ten years old I woke up one summer morning to a sensation of longing. Besides the longing I was in love with a girl named Louise ... At the breakfast table I took a look at my father with his round head, his iron colored hair, his chipper red cheeks, and I wondered to myself: at what age does a man get over this longing?
The answer is, he doesn't.
Love in the Ruins
Free Oxford Biblical Studies Online
From Doctor Platypus:
Oxford University Press has launched a new biblical studies resource page called Oxford Biblical Studies Online. They are letting people have free access until the end of May. To access the free trial, click on the above link and use the following login information:
username: presspass
password: springtime
According to the home page, the site provides the following resources:
Bible texts include six essential OUP Bibles, including the latest edition of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, as well as deuterocanonical collections, Concordances, and the Oxford Bible Commentary. Search across multiple versions of the Bible, and compare different texts and commentaries in an innovative side-by-side view
Over 5,000 A-Z entries and chapters from acclaimed Oxford references, written by leading scholars and specialists
Hundreds of images and maps provide visual perspectives of the biblical world
Tools & Resources contains Internet resources selected by specialists in the field, tables and charts of biblical calendars, weights and measures, suggested reading lists for further research, and more.
Oxford University Press has launched a new biblical studies resource page called Oxford Biblical Studies Online. They are letting people have free access until the end of May. To access the free trial, click on the above link and use the following login information:
username: presspass
password: springtime
According to the home page, the site provides the following resources:
Bible texts include six essential OUP Bibles, including the latest edition of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, as well as deuterocanonical collections, Concordances, and the Oxford Bible Commentary. Search across multiple versions of the Bible, and compare different texts and commentaries in an innovative side-by-side view
Over 5,000 A-Z entries and chapters from acclaimed Oxford references, written by leading scholars and specialists
Hundreds of images and maps provide visual perspectives of the biblical world
Tools & Resources contains Internet resources selected by specialists in the field, tables and charts of biblical calendars, weights and measures, suggested reading lists for further research, and more.
Nobody is hindered from baptism and from grace
Especially not infants. So says Cyprian, bishop in Africa around 250 AD.
If anything could hinder men from obtaining grace, their more heinous sins might rather hinder those who are mature and grown up and older. But again, if even to the greatest sinners, and to those who had sinned much against God, when they subsequently believed, remission of sins is granted-and nobody is hindered from baptism and from grace-how much rather ought we to shrink from hindering an infant, who being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born of the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins that to him are remitted, not his own sins, but the sins of another.
And therefore, dearest brother, this was our opinion in council, that by us no one ought to be hindered from baptism and from the grace of God, who is merciful and kind and loving to all … We think baptism is to be even more observed in respect of infants and newly-born persons, who on this very account deserve more from our help and from the divine mercy, that immediately, on the very beginning of their birth, lamenting and weeping, they do nothing else but entreat.
Cyprian, “Epistle 64” in Ante Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5, 354.
If anything could hinder men from obtaining grace, their more heinous sins might rather hinder those who are mature and grown up and older. But again, if even to the greatest sinners, and to those who had sinned much against God, when they subsequently believed, remission of sins is granted-and nobody is hindered from baptism and from grace-how much rather ought we to shrink from hindering an infant, who being lately born, has not sinned, except in that, being born of the flesh according to Adam, he has contracted the contagion of the ancient death at its earliest birth, who approaches the more easily on this very account to the reception of the forgiveness of sins that to him are remitted, not his own sins, but the sins of another.
And therefore, dearest brother, this was our opinion in council, that by us no one ought to be hindered from baptism and from the grace of God, who is merciful and kind and loving to all … We think baptism is to be even more observed in respect of infants and newly-born persons, who on this very account deserve more from our help and from the divine mercy, that immediately, on the very beginning of their birth, lamenting and weeping, they do nothing else but entreat.
Cyprian, “Epistle 64” in Ante Nicene Fathers, Vol. 5, 354.
Mission from Africa
Mission from Africa is a long, well done piece from the NYT on a Pentecostal church from Africa which is growing very quickly in Africa and in America. The article highlights the growth and strength of African Christianity especially its Pentecostal variety. The church is the Redeemed Christian Church of God.
One paragraph:
In our interview, Adeboye began to talk, as he often does, about his own personal journey to salvation. It is a story with the usual Augustinian elements: prestige, women, booze. But Adeboye’s distinctive weakness, one he also glimpses in this society, was what he describes as an idolatrous reliance on reason. “It begins to give man the impression that man is the almighty, that man can do anything,” the pastor said. “He can go to the moon, go to Mars, perform operations with a laser beam without spilling blood. The problem, the way I see it, is that because of the advance of technology, science and investing, the Western world began to feel that they didn’t need God as much as before. Whereas in Africa, we need him. We know we need him to survive.”
One paragraph:
In our interview, Adeboye began to talk, as he often does, about his own personal journey to salvation. It is a story with the usual Augustinian elements: prestige, women, booze. But Adeboye’s distinctive weakness, one he also glimpses in this society, was what he describes as an idolatrous reliance on reason. “It begins to give man the impression that man is the almighty, that man can do anything,” the pastor said. “He can go to the moon, go to Mars, perform operations with a laser beam without spilling blood. The problem, the way I see it, is that because of the advance of technology, science and investing, the Western world began to feel that they didn’t need God as much as before. Whereas in Africa, we need him. We know we need him to survive.”
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
The wounds of Jesus : the gospel is never past tense.
Russell Moore has a nice piece at CT about cremation, burial, the wounds of Christ and the nature of our resurrection bodies.
Here is a bit:
Our resurrection bodies will be whole and at peace, Scripture tells us. However we die, however we are laid to rest, this is all just the planting of a seed that flourishes into new life in the age to come (1 Cor. 15:35-44). Of course there's continuity. It is your body being raised; everything it means to be you. But what is "sown in weakness" is "raised in power" and what is "sown in dishonor" is "raised in glory" (1 Cor. 15:43).
Jesus' remaining wounds are unique, and the gospel itself shows us how. The Cross and the Empty Tomb aren't blips on the screen of God's redemptive purposes. They represent the gospel itself, the one story that makes sense of all our stories. They are, as the apostle Paul puts it, "of first importance" (1 Cor. 15:3).
This is why, even in the heavenly courts themselves, the redeemed sing of the worthiness of Christ "for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God" (Rev. 5:9). The Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, "has conquered," we'll sing together. His piercings show us how he did so. The marks of Jesus' crucifixion are ever-present reminders that the redeemed of all the ages are just that: redeemed. When we've been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun, we will still be ex-sinners, those who were rescued by the love and mercy of God in Christ.
The wounds of Jesus — in beauty glorified — are eternal reminders that the gospel is never past tense.
I still oppose cremation. There's a reason Christians throughout the centuries have committed the bodies of the faithful to the ground, dramatically picturing our trust in the reclamation of these very same bodies when the roll is called up yonder. But I'm careful now to explain that, whatever is the case, cremation isn't forever. Neither is amputation or mastectomies or the horrifying tattoo marks of totalitarian regimes sending prisoners to their executions.
Our God is able to empty urns, to enliven graves, to restore limbs. He is able — and willing — to wipe away tears, and to make all things new. We ought to care for our bodies, and to care about how we honor them before and after death.
But, more importantly, we ought to remind ourselves of our hope, the day when we'll be gathered on the other side of this age of cemeteries. His blessings will be known, far as the curse is found — and that includes the marks of death we bore in our bodies. We'll be home, and we'll be whole.
Monday, April 13, 2009
Solitary Confinement and the Image of the Triune God
This article on solitary confinement by the fine science and medical writer Atul Gawande is thought provoking. I am not so much interested (nor is the article itself) in whether or not solitary confinement constitutes torture. I am more interested in the science of how our minds work. We need interaction with others. It is a basic constituent part of how we are wired. The point of the article is that we quickly go crazy when we are isolated from others. Here are the introductory sentences:
Human beings are social creatures. We are social not just in the trivial sense that we like company, and not just in the obvious sense that we each depend on others. We are social in a more elemental way: simply to exist as a normal human being requires interaction with other people.
There are Christian implications to this as well: being made in the image of a Triune God, the need for a deeper transcendent interaction with our Creator, the communal nature of the church as the new creation, and more. Here are a few paragraphs from a papal document that touch upon this theme:
When one speaks of the person, one refers both to the irreducible identity and interiority that constitutes the particular individual being, and to the fundamental relationship to other persons that is the basis for human community. In the Christian perspective, this personal identity that is at once an orientation to the other is founded essentially on the Trinity of divine Persons. God is not a solitary being, but a communion of three Persons. Constituted by the one divine nature, the identity of the Father is his paternity, his relation to the Son and the Spirit; the identity of the Son is his relation to the Father and the Spirit; the identity of the Spirit is his relation to the Father and the Son. Christian revelation led to the articulation of the concept of person, and gave it a divine, christological, and Trinitarian meaning. In effect, no person is as such alone in the universe, but is always constituted with others and is summoned to form a community with them.
It follows that personal beings are social beings as well. The human being is truly human to the extent that he actualizes the essentially social element in his constitution as a person within familial, religious, civil, professional, and other groups that together form the surrounding society to which he belongs. While affirming the fundamentally social character of human existence, Christian civilization has nonetheless recognized the absolute value of the human person as well as the importance of individual rights and cultural diversity. In the created order, there will always be a certain tension between the individual person and the demands of social existence. In the Blessed Trinity there is a perfect harmony between the Persons who share the communion of a single divine life.
Human beings are social creatures. We are social not just in the trivial sense that we like company, and not just in the obvious sense that we each depend on others. We are social in a more elemental way: simply to exist as a normal human being requires interaction with other people.
There are Christian implications to this as well: being made in the image of a Triune God, the need for a deeper transcendent interaction with our Creator, the communal nature of the church as the new creation, and more. Here are a few paragraphs from a papal document that touch upon this theme:
When one speaks of the person, one refers both to the irreducible identity and interiority that constitutes the particular individual being, and to the fundamental relationship to other persons that is the basis for human community. In the Christian perspective, this personal identity that is at once an orientation to the other is founded essentially on the Trinity of divine Persons. God is not a solitary being, but a communion of three Persons. Constituted by the one divine nature, the identity of the Father is his paternity, his relation to the Son and the Spirit; the identity of the Son is his relation to the Father and the Spirit; the identity of the Spirit is his relation to the Father and the Son. Christian revelation led to the articulation of the concept of person, and gave it a divine, christological, and Trinitarian meaning. In effect, no person is as such alone in the universe, but is always constituted with others and is summoned to form a community with them.
It follows that personal beings are social beings as well. The human being is truly human to the extent that he actualizes the essentially social element in his constitution as a person within familial, religious, civil, professional, and other groups that together form the surrounding society to which he belongs. While affirming the fundamentally social character of human existence, Christian civilization has nonetheless recognized the absolute value of the human person as well as the importance of individual rights and cultural diversity. In the created order, there will always be a certain tension between the individual person and the demands of social existence. In the Blessed Trinity there is a perfect harmony between the Persons who share the communion of a single divine life.
Friday, April 10, 2009
The bait of mankind, the hook of deity
A familiar image of the cross from the early church. Luther used it as well.
God therefore hid himself under the veil of our nature so that the devil, throwing himself like a ravenous fish on the bait of mankind might be caught on the hook of deity ... He thought he would hold it in death like a man but Christ acted according to his nature. As the light, he dispelled darkness. As the life, he destroyed death.
Gregory of Nyssa
God therefore hid himself under the veil of our nature so that the devil, throwing himself like a ravenous fish on the bait of mankind might be caught on the hook of deity ... He thought he would hold it in death like a man but Christ acted according to his nature. As the light, he dispelled darkness. As the life, he destroyed death.
Gregory of Nyssa
Christ sent hell to hell
Here is one pastor's poetic meditation upon Luther's thinking on the cross:
Upon the cross Christ
put death to death,
gave the devil to the devil
sent hell to hell,
led captivity captive.
Oh death,
Christ is your death!
Oh Hell,
Christ is thy destruction.
Sinning against sin,
the Righteousness of Christ,
rose up in the resurrection!
Upon the cross Christ
put death to death,
gave the devil to the devil
sent hell to hell,
led captivity captive.
Oh death,
Christ is your death!
Oh Hell,
Christ is thy destruction.
Sinning against sin,
the Righteousness of Christ,
rose up in the resurrection!
Through us, he died; through him, we shall live.
His Death is our Hope by St. Augustine of Hippo
The passion of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ is the hope of glory and a lesson in patience.
What may not the hearts of believers promise themselves as the gift of God’s grace, when for their sake God’s only Son, co-eternal with the Father, was not content only to be born as man from human stock but even died at the hands of the men he had created?
It is a great thing that we are promised by the Lord, but far greater is what has already been done for us, and which we now commemorate. Where were the sinners, what were they, when Christ died for them? When Christ has already given us the gift of his death, who is to doubt that he will give the saints the gift of his own life? Why does our human frailty hesitate to believe that mankind will one day live with God?
Who is Christ if not the Word of God: in the beginning was the Word, and the Words was with God, and the Word was God? This Word of God was made flesh and dwelt among us. He had no power of himself to die for us: he had to take from us our mortal flesh. This was the way in which, though immortal, he was able to die; the way in which he chose to give life to mortal men: he would first share with us, and then enable us to share with him. Of ourselves we had no power to live, nor did he of himself have the power to die.
In other words, he performed the most wonderful exchange with us. Through us, he died; through him, we shall live.
The death of the Lord our God should not be a cause of shame for us; rather, it should be our greatest hope, our greatest glory. In taking upon himself the death that he found in us, he has most faithfully promised to give us life in him, such as we cannot have of ourselves.
He loved us so much that, sinless himself, he suffered for us sinners the punishment we deserved for our sins. How then can he fail to give us the reward we deserve for our righteousness, for he is the source of righteousness? How can he, whose promises are true, fail to reward the saints when he bore the punishment of sinners, though without sin himself?
Brethren, let us then fearlessly acknowledge, and even openly proclaim, that Christ was crucified for us; let us confess it, not in fear but in joy, not in shame but in glory.
The apostle Paul saw Christ, and extolled his claim to glory. He had many great and inspired things to say about Christ, but he did not say that he boasted in Christ’s wonderful works: in creating the world, since he was God with the Father, or in ruling the world, though he was also a man like us. Rather, he said: Let me not boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Luther, the labor of birth and the resurrection
More Easter preparation gleanings:
Luther, in a sermon on the resurrection in his house postils, is speaking of the fact that Christ's resurrection benefits all believers. We are members of his body, so if the head has "become a mighty Lord over all things", we too share in this.
Then he has this marvelous sentence which one can easily miss:
For where our head is there also the body must be presented, as we see in the case of all animals as they are born into this life.
He begins in familiar fashion but the illustration he uses at the end is very very nice. He is speaking of the birth of animals. Just as when a calf or a horse is born and the head presents first and then in the process of birth the rest of the body appears so it is for us. Our head has through much labor and suffering been born into heaven, he has risen bodily and lives. We are still struggling in the innards of this life, in the darkness of the womb, in the entrails sin and death but there is no guesswork, no uncertainty as to the outcome. We too will live though we die. We will rise. We will be born into heaven. Our Lord goes before us but only as the head of a body; our resurrection is assured.
What an earthy, concrete, easily understood yet surprising illustration. I had never noticed it before. Kudos to Pastor Luther.
Luther, in a sermon on the resurrection in his house postils, is speaking of the fact that Christ's resurrection benefits all believers. We are members of his body, so if the head has "become a mighty Lord over all things", we too share in this.
Then he has this marvelous sentence which one can easily miss:
For where our head is there also the body must be presented, as we see in the case of all animals as they are born into this life.
He begins in familiar fashion but the illustration he uses at the end is very very nice. He is speaking of the birth of animals. Just as when a calf or a horse is born and the head presents first and then in the process of birth the rest of the body appears so it is for us. Our head has through much labor and suffering been born into heaven, he has risen bodily and lives. We are still struggling in the innards of this life, in the darkness of the womb, in the entrails sin and death but there is no guesswork, no uncertainty as to the outcome. We too will live though we die. We will rise. We will be born into heaven. Our Lord goes before us but only as the head of a body; our resurrection is assured.
What an earthy, concrete, easily understood yet surprising illustration. I had never noticed it before. Kudos to Pastor Luther.
There aint no grave gonna hold my body down ...
Here is a song for Easter. We won't be singing it at my church. I don't recommend it as church music. I know it is not Lutheran. I know it is rough and a bit crazy. It is "country", no doubt. But as I listen to this backwoods, most likely Baptist, preacher, I can hear the joy of the resurrection.
There aint no grave gonna hold my body down.
When you hear that trumpet sound,
gonna get up out the ground.
His confession is true. There is no grave that can hold down the body of a Christian. For we are united by Holy Baptism to the divine, holy, conquering body of Christ, the one that rose from the clutches of the grave and now lives. As death could not hold Him it cannot hold us. Christ has dissolved the chains of sin with his blood, the chains that roped us into the grave and held us fast. But no more .
This is Brother Claude Ely from the Goodbye Babylon Collection of early 20th century, backwoods, gospel music.
There aint no grave gonna hold my body down.
When you hear that trumpet sound,
gonna get up out the ground.
His confession is true. There is no grave that can hold down the body of a Christian. For we are united by Holy Baptism to the divine, holy, conquering body of Christ, the one that rose from the clutches of the grave and now lives. As death could not hold Him it cannot hold us. Christ has dissolved the chains of sin with his blood, the chains that roped us into the grave and held us fast. But no more .
This is Brother Claude Ely from the Goodbye Babylon Collection of early 20th century, backwoods, gospel music.
Monday, April 06, 2009
The King of glory shall come in
Im Holy week preparations and wanderings, I have come across the Gospel of Nicodemus again, an apochryphal early Christian document. I have been re-reading part two, The Descent into Hell. It is a fascinating, entertaining story which tells the story of what happened when Jesus went down to Sheol to free the righteous from the power of death.
Now to be clear, it is not Scripture. Far from it. It would rightly fail doctrinal review on any number of points.
But it is a valuable bit of popular, Christian entertainment. It is a delightful fable, a imaginary story which illustrates, in a fanciful fictional way, the basic truths of Easter: that Christ has freed us from the clutches of sin and death and hell and the devil.
The panicked conversation between Hell and the Devil over who is to blame for letting Jesus down there is worth the read. Here is that bit but read the whole thing.
1 And while all the saints were rejoicing, behold Satan the prince and chief of death said unto Hell: Make thyself ready to receive Jesus who boasteth himself that he is the Son of God, whereas he is a man that feareth death, and sayeth: My soul is sorrowful even unto death. And he hath been much mine enemy, doing me great hurt, and many that I had made blind, lame, dumb, leprous, and possessed he hath healed with a word: and some whom I have brought unto thee dead, them hath he taken away from thee.
2 Hell answered and said unto Satan the prince: Who is he that is so mighty, if he be a man that feareth death? for all the mighty ones of the earth are held in subjection by my power, even they whom thou hast brought me subdued by thy power. If, then, thou art mighty, what manner of man is this Jesus who, though he fear death, resisteth thy power? If he be so mighty in his manhood, verily I say unto thee he is almighty in his god-head, and no man can withstand his power. And when he saith that he feareth death, he would ensnare thee, and woe shall be unto thee for everlasting ages.
But Satan the prince of Tartarus said: Why doubtest thou and fearest to receive this Jesus which is thine adversary and mine? For I tempted him, and have stirred up mine ancient people of the Jews with envy and wrath against him. I have sharpened a spear to thrust him through, gall and vinegar have I mingled to give him to drink, and I have prepared a cross to crucify him and nails to pierce him: and his death is nigh at hand, that I may bring him unto thee to be subject unto thee and me.
3 Hell answered and said: Thou hast told me that it is he that hath taken away dead men from me. For there be many which while they lived on the earth have taken dead men from me, yet not by their own power but by prayer to God, and their almighty God hath taken them from me. Who is this Jesus which by his own word without prayer hath drawn dead men from me? Perchance it is he which by the word of his command did restore to life Lazarus which was four days dead and stank and was corrupt, whom I held here dead.
Satan the prince of death answered and said: It is that same Jesus.
When Hell heard that he said unto him: I adjure thee by thy strength and mine own that thou bring him not unto me. For at that time I, when I heard the command of his word, did quake and was overwhelmed with fear, and all my ministries with me were troubled. Neither could we keep Lazarus, but he like an eagle shaking himself leaped forth with all agility and swiftness, and departed from us, and the earth also which held the dead body of Lazarus straightway gave him up alive. Wherefore now I know that that man which was able to do these things is a God strong in command and mighty in manhood, and that he is the saviour of mankind. And if thou bring him unto me he will set free all that are here shut up in the hard prison and bound in the chains of their sins that cannot be broken, and will bring them unto the life of his god head for ever.
And as Satan the prince, and Hell, spoke this together, suddenly there came a voice as of thunder and a spiritual cry: Remove, O princes, your gates, and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors, and the King of glory shall come in.
When Hell heard that he said unto Satan the prince: Depart from me and go out of mine abode: if thou be a mighty man of war, fight thou against the King of glory. But what hast thou to do with him? And Hell cast Satan forth out of his dwelling. Then said Hell unto his wicked ministers: Shut ye the hard gates of brass and put on them the bars of iron and withstand stoutly, lest we that hold captivity be taken captive
...
Then did the King of glory in his majesty trample upon death, and laid hold on Satan the prince and delivered him unto the power of Hell, and drew Adam to him unto his own brightness.
Saturday, April 04, 2009
Netbooks : the wave of the future
Iam no tech geek but this sounds fascinating.
Here are the first few paragraphs:
Get ready for the next stage in the personal computer revolution: ultrathin and dirt cheap.
AT&T announced on Tuesday that customers in Atlanta could get a type of compact PC called a netbook for just $50 if they signed up for an Internet service plan — an offer the phone company may introduce elsewhere after a test period. This year, at least one wireless phone company in the United States will probably offer netbooks free with paid data plans, copying similar programs in Japan, according to industry experts.
But this revolution is not just about falling prices. Personal computers — and the companies that make their crucial components — are about to go through their biggest upheaval since the rise of the laptop. By the end of the year, consumers are likely to see laptops the size of thin paperback books that can run all day on a single charge and are equipped with touch screens or slide-out keyboards.
The industry is buzzing this week about these devices at a telecommunications conference in Las Vegas, and consumers will see the first machines on shelves as early as June, probably from the netbook pioneers Acer and Asustek.
“The era of a perfect Internet computer for $99 is coming this year,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, a maker of PC graphics chips that is trying to adapt to the new technological order. “The primary computer that we know of today is the basic PC, and it’s dying to be reinvented.”
An unexpected group of companies has emerged to help drive this transformation — firms like Qualcomm, Freescale Semiconductor and Samsung Electronics, which make cheap, power-saving chips used in cellphones and are now applying that expertise to PCs.
As in any revolution, the current rulers of the kingdom — Intel and Microsoft, which make the chips and software that run most PCs — face an unprecedented challenge to their dominance. Microsoft is particularly vulnerable, since many of the new netbooks use Linux software instead of Windows.
“A broad shift in the consumer market toward low-cost PCs would clearly put pressure on the revenues of nearly every player in the value chain, from component suppliers to retailers,” wrote A. M. Sacconaghi, a securities analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, in a report last month. “However, we believe the impact would be especially negative for Intel and Microsoft, who today enjoy near monopoly positions in their respective markets.”
So far, netbooks have appealed to a relatively small audience. Some of the devices feel more like toys or overgrown phones than full-featured computers. Still, they are the big success story in the PC industry, with sales predicted to double this year, even as overall PC sales fall 12 percent, according to the research firm Gartner. By the end of 2009, netbooks could account for close to 10 percent of the PC market, an astonishing rise in a short span.
Here are the first few paragraphs:
Get ready for the next stage in the personal computer revolution: ultrathin and dirt cheap.
AT&T announced on Tuesday that customers in Atlanta could get a type of compact PC called a netbook for just $50 if they signed up for an Internet service plan — an offer the phone company may introduce elsewhere after a test period. This year, at least one wireless phone company in the United States will probably offer netbooks free with paid data plans, copying similar programs in Japan, according to industry experts.
But this revolution is not just about falling prices. Personal computers — and the companies that make their crucial components — are about to go through their biggest upheaval since the rise of the laptop. By the end of the year, consumers are likely to see laptops the size of thin paperback books that can run all day on a single charge and are equipped with touch screens or slide-out keyboards.
The industry is buzzing this week about these devices at a telecommunications conference in Las Vegas, and consumers will see the first machines on shelves as early as June, probably from the netbook pioneers Acer and Asustek.
“The era of a perfect Internet computer for $99 is coming this year,” said Jen-Hsun Huang, the chief executive of Nvidia, a maker of PC graphics chips that is trying to adapt to the new technological order. “The primary computer that we know of today is the basic PC, and it’s dying to be reinvented.”
An unexpected group of companies has emerged to help drive this transformation — firms like Qualcomm, Freescale Semiconductor and Samsung Electronics, which make cheap, power-saving chips used in cellphones and are now applying that expertise to PCs.
As in any revolution, the current rulers of the kingdom — Intel and Microsoft, which make the chips and software that run most PCs — face an unprecedented challenge to their dominance. Microsoft is particularly vulnerable, since many of the new netbooks use Linux software instead of Windows.
“A broad shift in the consumer market toward low-cost PCs would clearly put pressure on the revenues of nearly every player in the value chain, from component suppliers to retailers,” wrote A. M. Sacconaghi, a securities analyst with Sanford C. Bernstein & Company, in a report last month. “However, we believe the impact would be especially negative for Intel and Microsoft, who today enjoy near monopoly positions in their respective markets.”
So far, netbooks have appealed to a relatively small audience. Some of the devices feel more like toys or overgrown phones than full-featured computers. Still, they are the big success story in the PC industry, with sales predicted to double this year, even as overall PC sales fall 12 percent, according to the research firm Gartner. By the end of 2009, netbooks could account for close to 10 percent of the PC market, an astonishing rise in a short span.
Wednesday, April 01, 2009
Jesus stole my best friend
An article by a sort of lapsed Catholic christian whose friend converts to a showy emotional "brand" of Christianity.
The article is a thoughtful take on slipping away from active participation in the church, non-denominational Christianity and the lonesomeness for ritual and solemnity one can feel even when one doesn't want to be part of the worshipping community.
Here is a bit:
No prayer booklets with Renaissance depictions on the front. No priest with vestments. The homily was more of a speech by a man in a suit (with no apparent affiliation) recounting his experience with cancer treatments.
It was inspiring to hear how prayer had helped him through the toughest part of his chemo treatment but I found myself shuffling in my folding chair over the informality of the service. Where was the incense? I was uncomfortable but it wasn’t a bad experience.
Afterwards, Andrea and I discussed my impressions of the meeting. For once, I wasn’t icy but lukewarm while I explained that I felt like something was missing. There was no physical symbolism. My idea of religion included being engulfed by a tall wood and stone structure and staring at scenes in windows made out of colored glass that were often too far up to touch.
The article is a thoughtful take on slipping away from active participation in the church, non-denominational Christianity and the lonesomeness for ritual and solemnity one can feel even when one doesn't want to be part of the worshipping community.
Here is a bit:
No prayer booklets with Renaissance depictions on the front. No priest with vestments. The homily was more of a speech by a man in a suit (with no apparent affiliation) recounting his experience with cancer treatments.
It was inspiring to hear how prayer had helped him through the toughest part of his chemo treatment but I found myself shuffling in my folding chair over the informality of the service. Where was the incense? I was uncomfortable but it wasn’t a bad experience.
Afterwards, Andrea and I discussed my impressions of the meeting. For once, I wasn’t icy but lukewarm while I explained that I felt like something was missing. There was no physical symbolism. My idea of religion included being engulfed by a tall wood and stone structure and staring at scenes in windows made out of colored glass that were often too far up to touch.
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