Philosopher's Armchair

Signing Off

2007-12-31T14:01:00.000-06:00

After not posting for over a month, I find I am doing quite well without blogging, thank you.

The world's not too bad off, either. Nothing in the world seems to have come a part, not even the slightest unhinged, by my blog silence.

I have written nothing because I do not have anything to say. Really. I just don't want to 'talk' right now about what is going on in my church or in our politics. I'm not sure I have anything to add (and I flatter myself that I ever really did). And I am very tired. Of talking. Of writing. Of the blogospheric drama.

I suppose, at some level, I am feeling called to fast from the kind of public commentary I've posted on this blog. I need to learn to be silent and to listen better. Why war against that with the blog?

So, for now, and perhaps for good, I sign off. Thank you visiting my blog in 2007 and I wish you God's richest blessing in 2008.

Grace and peace,

Steve

That's my lovie

2007-11-13T21:01:00.000-06:00

Isn't she lovely?

"We made a mistake"

2007-11-03T21:01:00.000-05:00

Incredible words from any leader, let alone Bill Hybels, senior pastor of megachurch Willow Creek:

We made a mistake. What we should have done when people crossed the line of faith and become Christians, we should have started telling people and teaching people that they have to take responsibility to become ‘self feeders.’ We should have gotten people, taught people, how to read their bible between service, how to do the spiritual practices much more aggressively on their own.

I hope they succeed in implementing the new vision, for Willow Creek is a church who leads by their example.

H/T: Kendall Harmon.

+Duncan to ++Katharine

2007-11-02T16:59:00.000-05:00

Priceless.

1st November, A.D. 2007
The Feast of All Saints

The Most Revd Katharine Jefferts Schori
Episcopal Church Center
New York, New York

Dear Katharine,

Here I stand. I can do no other. I will neither compromise the Faith once delivered to the saints, nor will I abandon the sheep who elected me to protect them.

Pax et bonum in Christ Jesus our Lord,

+Bob Pittsburgh

++Schori "wages reconciliation" with her first letter to ++Duncan, here.

I can't wait. . .

2007-11-01T08:56:00.000-05:00

. . .to teach philosophical theology again. Really. It is one of the great privileges of my job that I get paid to spend time reflecting on the deep mysteries of our faith, in the company of excited students, guided by some of the most insightful and rigorous works of historical and contemporary philosophy. Great stuff. This spring's course description is here.

A Hymn for All Saints'

2007-11-01T08:17:00.000-05:00

I adore this hymn and thanks to Oremus.org, it is available to you and me for a moment of worship to commemorate All Saints' Day. God bless!

For All the Saints, Who from Their Labors Rest
For all the saints, who from their labors rest,

who thee by faith before the world confessed,

thy Name, O Jesus, be forever blessed.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;

thou, Lord, their Captain in the well fought fight;

thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the apostles' glorious company,

who bearing forth the cross o'er land and sea,

shook all the mighty world, we sing to Thee:

Alleluia, Alleluia!

For the Evangelists, by whose blest word,

like fourfold streams, the garden of the Lord,

is fair and fruitful, be thy Name adored.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

For Martyrs, who with rapture kindled eye,

saw the bright crown descending from the sky,

and seeing, grasped it, thee we glorify.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

O may thy soldiers, faithful, true, and bold,

fight as the saints who nobly fought of old,

and win, with them the victor's crown of gold.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

O blest communion, fellowship divine!

we feebly struggle, they in glory shine;

all are one in thee, for all are thine.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

And when the strife is fierce, the warfare long,

steals on the ear the distant triumph song,

and hearts are brave, again, and arms are strong.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

The golden evening brightens in the west;

soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;

sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day;

the saints triumphant rise in bright array;

the King of glory passes on his way.

Alleluia, Alleluia!

From earth's wide bounds, from ocean's farthest coast,

through gates of pearl streams in the countless host,

and singing to Father, Son and Holy Ghost:

Alleluia, Alleluia!

Words: William Walsham How, 1864
Music: Sine nomine, Pro omnibus Sanctis, Luccombe, Sarum, Engelberg, For All the Saints

The Right Nowadays

2007-10-31T22:42:00.000-05:00

Here's the definition of its chief political strategy:

taking a perfectly admirable stance - exposing the evils of Islamist terrorism - and turning it into polarizing McCarthyism.

Luther & Galileo

2007-10-31T09:42:00.000-05:00

In the spirit of Reformation Day, I post this video I just happened across. It is a resource prepared by the History Department of Bethel University for their Christianity and Western Culture course. Geeky kid I was, I always enjoyed the Sherman and Peabody cartoons. Well, Radio CWC now puts Peabody to great use to help resolve the epoch-making science vs. theology conflict between Galileo and the Catholic church. At one point, in an intriguing way, Luther gets dragged into the epistemological debate. Enjoy!

Welcome, Anglicat

2007-10-30T15:45:00.000-05:00

She's a new blogger and a conservative, Episcopal priest in the Diocese of Minnesota (like SF, I didn't know such people existed!). I especially appreciate today's entry about the symbolism of hand motions during the eucharistic liturgy. Here's a tasty morsel:

Several months ago, a church visitor also complimented me on the use of hand gestures. She is an expert in the Montessori-based program of Christian education known as "Catechesis of the Good Shepherd," and knows from experience that the gestures help to make the Eucharistic liturgy more interesting and accessible to young children. Her comments triggered the memory of a parishioner many years ago telling me how she had been fascinated to watch a child in the pew in front of her reverentially copying each and every movement of my hands. The Catechesis of the Good Shepherd teacher went on to describe her frustration with her own rector, who refuses to use hand gestures during liturgy, dismissing the gestures as connoting the hocus-pocus of magic and not the holy miracle of the transforming of bread and wine into the body and blood of Christ. Yet, putting aside the anecdotal evidence of the effectiveness of the hand gestures, how do the gestures connote "magic" any more than prescribed words that must be repeated each liturgy?

For young and old and everybody in-between, evoking sensory involvement in our liturgies helps to make our corporate worship all the more powerful. That's why good religious art, colorful vestments, hymns, and yes--even incense and reverential hand gestures--play an important role in enhancing the words we use to praise God. "Let all that is within me praise the Lord!"

Welcome to the blogosphere, Anglicat, and God bless!

How to Fix the Bears

2007-10-30T12:30:00.000-05:00

This suggestion from Vic about a long-term--way long-term--solution:

Extract Mike Brown DNA, go forward in time machine to the year 2150 and bring back numerous clones.

Gotta admit, there's no better case I can imagine for genetic engineering.

Quote of the Day

2007-10-30T11:55:00.000-05:00

. . .the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing - direct murder by the mother herself. And we read in the Scripture, for God says very clearly: Even if a mother could forget her child - I will not forget you - I have carved you in the palm of my hand. We are carved in the palm of His hand, so close to Him that unborn child has been carved in the hand of God. And that is what strikes me most, the beginning of that sentence, that even if a mother could forget something impossible - but even if she could forget - I will not forget you. And today the greatest means - the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion. And we who are standing here - our parents wanted us. We would not be here if our parents would do that to us. Our children, we want them, we love them, but what of the millions. Many people are very, very concerned with the children in India, with the children in Africa where quite a number die, maybe of malnutrition, of hunger and so on, but millions are dying deliberately by the will of the mother. And this is what is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child - what is left for me to kill you and you kill me - there is nothing between.
--Mother Teresa

The Altruistic Imperative

2007-10-30T11:06:00.000-05:00

We've been talking about Mother Teresa today in PHIL 102. Her self-sacrificial life, devoted to serving Jesus Christ among the sick and the poor, got me thinking about Peter Singer's version of the altruistic imperative:

So how does my philosophy break down in dollars and cents? An American household with an income of $50,000 spends around $30,000 annually on necessities, according to the Conference Board, a nonprofit economic research organization. Therefore, for a household bringing in $50,000 a year, donations to help the world's poor should be as close as possible to $20,000. The $30,000 required for necessities holds for higher incomes as well. So a household making $100,000 could cut a yearly check for $70,000. Again, the formula is simple: whatever money you're spending on luxuries, not necessities, should be given away.

If Singer's philosophy is wrong, the question is why? I've left that question unanswered with my students--I tell 'em to put it in their philosophical pipe and smoke it! What do you think?

Kant was right

2007-10-30T08:18:00.000-05:00

The mind does construct reality.

(H/T: AS)

Parenthood

2007-10-27T09:33:00.000-05:00

...is such a joy.

Wheaton Philosophy Conference

2007-10-25T12:37:00.000-05:00

Looks good. I'll be there. Quite an all-star line-up, too.

Kant's Heritage

2007-10-23T13:31:00.000-05:00

Here's a hand out I am sharing with my History of Philosophy students today. It's an attempt--I hope not vain--to trace the lineaments of Kant's influence in post-Kantian philosophy, on both the continent and the English-speaking world. I'd be curious what my philosophical peers think of this generalization, as broad and liable to exceptions and fine-tuning as I admit it is. Poke away at it, my friends!

-sdl

* * *

Kant’s Heritage
What happened after Kant, as a result of Kant?
Stephen D. Lake, Ph.D.

Here’s a broad generalization about the history of philosophy after Kant: Kant’s project of a critical transcendental philosophy split up along the two sides of the English channel. If in Kant the transcendental philosophy was to be critical, and critique transcendental, we might interpret the subsequent history as a severing of the transcendental from the critical, and vice versa. We defined transcendental critique as the project of finding in the pure structures of consciousness (subjectivity) the universal and necessary conditions of possible experience (and, later, of possible ethical judgments, etc.). I associated transcendental with aspect of subjectivity, rooted in the pure structures of consciousness, while the critical has more to do with the aspects of universality and necessity. For Kant, of course, the two went hand-in-hand and cannot be separated. But in the subsequent history, there is a tendency to separate what he put together.

So here’s my broad generalization: The transcendental strain took root in continental Europe through German Idealism, while the critical side came to characterize 19th century positivism (very influential in France), then logical positivism and its off-spring analytic philosophy in the English-speaking world.

Continental philosophy explored deeply the universal capacities of the transcendental subject—the implicit metaphysical basis for Kant’s own project. They took the aspect of human subjectivity and sought in it a principle for completing, much like Descartes, a entire philosophical system. Even if the transcendental was often interpreted more historically and culturally than psychologically in many German Idealists, their efforts still rested on Kant’s remarkable discovery of the transcendental structures of our consciousness. German Idealists like Hegel talk about self-conscious spirit (Geist) as the transcendental structure of reason, alive and at work in human history. The idea is that self-consciousness is itself an emergent force at work in the world, not just in you or me but in the cosmos as such. So instead of reaching for a transcendent origin of rationality, idealists spoke of the immanent, transcendental nature of consciousness as a systemic force at work in the world.

Eventually, in the phenomenological movement of the twentieth century (Husserl, Heidegger, Merleau-Ponty, Sartre and others), the effort was to give a pure analysis of consciousness from within, purified of metaphysical prejudices. The phenomenological method is to bracket metaphysical assumptions and return, merely, to “the things themselves!” (Husserl). With the anti-metaphysical side of phenomenology, there is, yes, a return of the more critical side of Kant. Phenomenology was the most dominant contemporary influence in continental philosophy.

An element of Kantian-type criticism, however, can be discerned in the tradition of English-speaking philosophy with its emphasis on epistemological limits and scientific rigor. That eventually gave rise to logical positivism. Positivism claims that only those statements which have a basis in fact (or can be logically extrapolated from fact) are rationally justified. All other statements are mere emotive speech. As such, most of metaphysics is reduced to expressions of human emotion, not a rational account of reality. Positivism is a form of scientism, and many of Kant’s bolder statements, limiting of metaphysics to the realm of “possible experience,” look and feel very scientistic, very positivistic, indeed. More specifically, analytic philosophy’s demands for precision and clarity in linguistic and conceptual analysis were a part of a larger effort to discern the logic of our beliefs—and their limits.

Eventually, and somewhat ironically, analytic philosophers have returned to metaphysics. Today, it is alive and well. But it is purified, you might say, of a lot of metaphysical extravagance and excess. Analytic metaphysics still adheres to a critical stricture (of sorts) of a rigorous philosophy of language. So even if, for instance, we cannot sense ‘God’ with the five senses (Kant’s critical standard of ‘possible experience’) and His actual existence is not capable of proof, we must elucidate our language about God to see, first and foremost, what we mean by the term ‘God.’ Then we seek to justify whether a religious believer is entitled to use language about God. In a way, this is not unlike Kant’s approach to the existence of God beyond the Critique of Pure Reason. He seeks to give a practical and teleological meaning to the concept of God, since we cannot prove God’s existence directly through pure theoretical reason.

Figures

2007-10-22T07:07:00.000-05:00

Report is that Griese called the plays all by himself on that game-winning 97-yard drive in the last 1:57 (H/T: CBFF's Kevin Gertsen):

PHILADELPHIA - Pinned on the three-yard line and out of timeouts, Chicago's final drive looked like a bust.

That was before the audio cut out on Brian Griese's helmet.

The only noise Griese heard was the sound of his own voice calling the plays, rallying the Bears and driving them 97 yards for the winning score in a 19-16 win over the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday night.

Don't count out the Bears quite yet in the NFC playoff picture.

"I felt really good calling my own plays in that situation," Griese said. "Before I got out into a two-minute drill, I kind of look at our play sheet and get in my mind a plan of what we want to do. So I felt comfortable in that situation."

Check out the great play-by-play account of Griese's brilliant drive by Mully. Congrats to Griese and the offense for maintaining their poise in what looked like a sure loss. And possibly the beginning of the end of the Bears' season.

Bottom line is: Ron Turner's gotta change--or get out of the way. We won yesterday in spite of him.

And in spite of the defense.

In reality, the Eagles lost this game by failing to turn 3 scoring drives in the first half, and a fourth in the second half, into TDs. Their red zone offense looked as bad as ours normally does. But between the 20's, they ran on us pretty much at will, and gashed us with screens and short outs in the flat. Honestly, it felt like we were losing 21-3 at half time and not 9-3. And in terms of quality of football played, we were.

So the Bears avoid going 2-5. 3-and-4 feels a lot better than 2-and-5, but don't be fooled. If you ask this skeptical fan, loss #5 is not far away. And the Bears might just fall short of the .500 mark the entire season.

More Contrarianism

2007-10-21T23:24:00.001-05:00

This time from the right:

I find myself questioning those on this thread who see this letter as a sign of weak and irresolute leadership by the Archbishop of Canterbury or as some new resolution on his part. It strikes me that in its own way it is quite clever and strong.

1. It asserts the primacy of the ABC over the Primates. RW sets himself as the arbiter of the response to the DES Communique. He will consult, but he alone will make the final determination of who is Windsor-compliant and who will get invitations to Lambeth. And after Lambeth, the pressure will be off.

2. He makes it clear that being Anglican in the fullest sense means being in communion with Canterbury, which is no doubt what he considers an essential of “Catholic” ecclesiology (cf. the recent comments by Roger Beckwith and Alister McGrath).

3. It asserts that the basis of his determination will be process over substance. He makes no mention of Lambeth 1.10, which is relevant only as part of the larger “Windsor” process. E.g, are dioceses that openly ordain practicing homosexuals as priests to be declared “Windsor-compliant”? Are bishops who openly declare homosexual activity to be godly and consistent with Scripture to be invited to Lambeth? I have no reason to think that they will not be.

4. It gives moral and legal support to bishops like John Howe who are facing revolts from their own clergy and congregations.

5. It widens the split between the “Fed-Cons” and “Com-Cons,” both within North America and the Global South (see immediate response by ACI).

6. It warns the Common Cause dioceses of TEC that they may be acting precipitously if they take the first steps toward separation since the ABC may be ready to do something on their behalf. Having already whittled the number of genuine Network dioceses to 3 or 4, he will try to detach a few more like Quincy. Finally, it writes off all those non-TEC bodies that have protested the drift of TEC over many years.

7. It warns the most radical revisionists not to cross a line by being too overt in snubbing the wider Communion and endangering Lambeth by inflammatory acts, such as the election of a lesbian bishop or authorization of official SSB rites. In other words, the Bishops of California and Canada will be wise to delay implementing the recent Resolutions of their conventions.

8. By citing a “Catholic” ecclesiology while ignoring the actual culture and polity of The Episcopal Church, it offers no real hope for the future for conservative parishes and clergy.

9. It isolates those Global South Primates who have taken on congregations in all but the hypothetically non-compliant dioceses, and even in those cases, he may be suggesting that some hypothetical Visitor scheme is the appropriate instrument for alternative oversight.

I suppose the most positive reading of this letter is that Rowan Williams sees, with regret, that the mainstream leadership of The Episcopal Church is prepared to separate itself from the wider Anglican Communion at some time in the future, but he wants to make sure that that decision is deliberate and unequivocal. However, given his own agreement with the gay-rights agenda, it seems more likely that he wants to buy time for the Communion to change over to his views of The Anglican Way.
Posted by Stephen Noll on 10-21-2007 at 09:48 PM

Condemnation from the Episcopal Left

2007-10-21T22:37:00.000-05:00

It comes swiftly:

At 5:15 p.m. on Sunday, October 27 any respect I have been able to maintain for Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams, and any hope for the survival of the Anglican Communion as we currently know it, died. . .

It is now clear that Williams is willing to abandon any individual and even whole Provinces of the Anglican Communion in the cause of “unity”.

I say “unity” in inverted commas because it is not really unity at all, but the bowing of a misguided, naive, and incompetent leader to what one person has described as the “Bullydox” of the Communion: those very narrow “Neo-Puritan” conservatives who wish to reinterpret Anglicanism to be something that is not the “large tent” we are all so familiar with but a prison wherein they alone guard and define what is “acceptable” for others to believe.

He concludes:

But this is also freeing for us as a Province: we now know what to expect, and can form our response without the need to wonder where the Archbishop will ultimately stand, because it will not be with us.

General Convention in Anaheim is certainly going to be interesting!

Interesting, indeed! Just keep it up, Fr. Taber-Hamilton, and you just might get your wish.

++Rowan's Letter to +Howe

2007-10-21T21:45:00.000-05:00

In our world of insta-crisis, it's got Anglican blogdom whipped into a frenzy:

I would repeat what I've said several times before - that any Diocese compliant with Windsor remains clearly in communion with Canterbury and the mainstream of the Communion, whatever may be the longer-term result for others in The Episcopal Church. The organ of union with the wider Church is the Bishop and the Diocese rather than the Provincial structure as such. Those who are rushing into separatist solutions are, I think, weakening that basic conviction of Catholic theology and in a sense treating the provincial structure of The Episcopal Church as if it were the most important thing - which is why I continue to hope and pray for the strengthening of the bonds of mutual support among those Episcopal Church Bishops who want to be clearly loyal to Windsor. Action that fragments their Dioceses will not help the consolidation of that all-important critical mass of ordinary faithful Anglicans in The Episcopal Church for whose nurture I am so much concerned. Breaking this up in favour of taking refuge in foreign jurisdictions complicates and embitters the future for this vision.

Do feel free to pass on these observations to your priests. I should feel a great deal happier, I must say, if those who are most eloquent for a traditionalist view in the United States showed a fuller understanding of the need to regard the Bishop and the Diocese as the primary locus of ecclesial identity rather than the abstract reality of the 'national church'. I think that if more thought in these terms there might be more understanding of why priests in a diocese such as yours ought to maintain their loyalty to their sacramental communion with you as Bishop. But at the emotional level I can understand something of the frustration they doubtless experience, just as you must.

The significance of this is that it is the first read word I've read or heard from ++Rowan that, as far as he is concerned, TEC's status in the Communion is genuinely at risk. While he says he serves and will uphold the will of the Communion, especially as spoken through the Primates, I am not sure I've really thought he'd ever let it come to point where there would be a parting of ways the national leadership of TEC.

Of course, none of that could materialize. Of course, he could be simply making a theoretical point that sticking with your bishop, come hell or high water, is essential, while in practice give TEC a pass. And so on, and so forth.

In the end, I’d be careful about reading too much good news for traditionalists into ++Rowan’s letter. While he ‘disses’ TEC, and promises safe harbor to Windsor Compliant dioceses--both pieces of good news--there is little in his track record to date to suggest that he will act, even on behalf of the primates, to distance himself and the organs of the Communion from TEC. ++Rowan is a deft wordsmith, and so what is not said in this letter is probably just as important as what was said. It remains theoretically, logically possible to diss TEC verbally as His Grace just did without doing anything at all to alter TEC's status vis-à-vis the Communion. And frankly, ++Rowan's past actions should create in the critical observer just such an expectation.

Read it all carefully. More later. . .

Sexy Scripture

2007-10-21T14:57:00.000-05:00

It's getting hot and heavy over at George's place:

"Drink water from your own cistern,
running water from your own well. . ."
Cistern and springs are metaphors for--how to put this delicately--a sexually excited woman and man, respectively.

Yes, my old friend, George Paul Wood, is simply continuing his studies on the book of Proverbs and not shying away from the racey bits. (He is an AoG minister, after all!)

Seriously, we need to denude Scripture, as it were, of our own prudishness. Thanks, George, for your faithful exegesis.

A-meh!

2007-10-21T13:56:00.000-05:00

Last night, near the conclusion of the prayer of consecration, we prayed as we always pray:

By him, and with him, and in him, in the unity of the Holy
Spirit all honor and glory is yours, Almighty Father, now and
for ever. AMEN.

And then, a split second later, my son Donovan blurted out:"A-meh!" There he was in my arms, smiling back at me.

It was definitely two syllables, definitely a mimic of our corporate "Amen," recognizable enough as an "Amen" even if it lacked a final consonant. That was, in fact, the first time I have ever heard him say "Amen." He never says it when we pray here at home, and we pray together daily. Something about the public setting must have brought it out of him. Oh great, I thought to myself. We've got an exhibitionist on our hands!

It was an adorable moment. A few people around us chuckled and grinned. And Mother Linda, up at the altar holding the prayer book for Father Bill, smiled from ear-to-ear right at Donovan. Priceless.

Transitions

2007-10-20T02:04:00.000-05:00

I'm not going through any transition right now--unless you consider living itself a daily transition--but still there is much wisdom in these reflections by Rev. Richard Kew:

Transition has the capacity make you into a very different kind of person. Handle it well and you grow, handle it badly and you either stagnate or fester. William Bridges wrote another much more personal book about his own transitions which he sub-titled "embracing life's most difficult moments." The message of this book is loud and clear that if you fail to embrace such moments then it is possible that maturities of which you are capable will pass you by. He echoes the opening words of Moby Dick, where Herman Melville writes about "the damp, drizzly November of my soul." I guess that journeys of transition often feel like this, and it is necessary for us to gird ourselves up and grasp them appropriately.

He's moving back to England, to teach at Ridley Hall, Cambridge, after many years of parish ministry in Tennessee. Now there's a transition for you!

A Student Typology

2007-10-19T05:34:00.000-05:00

My colleague Aron showed me this hilarious post at an academe blog recently, a systematic classification of the various types of students we professor-types encounter in the classroom. This type of prof must have tenure already and be very bored.

Anyway, here's the prospectus:

As I have been negotiating the different streams of thought occurring in the classroom, racial and sexual and gendered and intellectual, I began to think of the student catalogue, the system of identification that many of us maintain, even if it is not coherent, to understand the social world of the student within the classroom, a sort of primer in high school cafeteria politics, glossed within the college classroom— the paradigmatic tribes we inhabit. It allows us to teach more easily, and perhaps more problematically, also tends to determine our initial impressions of students, although I don’t know of any professor (or at least those who I respect) who isn’t willing to be surprised out of their system.

My "system" was developed as a younger teacher-apprentice and perfected at Sadistic College, with all its mind trips. I allowed it to get dusty at Cold City U., but now find that a review may prove helpful. Obviously, most of these archetypes are specific to my own training and experience, but modification is the art of classification, so adjust to your own expectational categories. Expand the boundaries of knowledge!

And here's a brief glimpse at the results. Any professor is familiar with these two types of students:

The Showstopper

Description: Gab-ilicious! Liza Minnelli gestures, eyes popping like Diana Ross, they want to be the Star, hands splayed out under the faces like Judy Garland
Habitat: Under the key light
Beneficial Effects: Will intervene in any silence, even if s/he hasn’t done the reading
Cautions: Boredom of the other students, yourself, as they drone on; hard to shut up

The Shy Girl

Description: Quiet, observant
Habitat: Fourth row, off-centre, head down, eyes averted
Beneficial Effects: Generally good work, their writing is typically highly skilled; their presence boosts your enrollments, pleasing the Dean
Cautions: Opaque, hard to read, potentially critical on course evaluations

Personally, my least favorite types are "The Skepticon" and "The Gradegrubber" and (from a commenter), "The Foreign Correspondent." And let's just face it: "The Dude" is simply a fact of life in PHIL 101 and 102 but can still be quite charming.

Great read. My sociological insight fails me at the moment, but I'm sure I'll come up with my own addition(s). When I do, you'll be the first to know.

Quote of the Day

2007-10-18T13:23:00.000-05:00

A student presentation today reminded me of this provocative Bonhoeffer quote:

What is worse than doing evil is being evil. . .[I]t is worse for a liar to tell the truth than for a lover of truth to lie (Ethics, p.67)

Bonhoeffer wrote this in the context of his own moral conflict as a Christian pacifist participating in the resistance against the Nazis and eventually in the plot to assassinate Hitler. I'm not sure I agree with it being worse for a liar to tell the truth--because that's still a morally correct action--but it might be morally exculpatory for a lover of truth--a person of otherwise impeccable character--to lie.

Of course, in the context, when he says "evil," Bonhoeffer is thinking about the wicked folks who ran Nazi Germany who were all too perspicuous in telling the truth about the perfectly wicked ideas and deeds they did. There is nothing particularly praiseworthy, even if correct, about an evil person formally getting it right. But in a similar vein, who of us is genuinely of impeccable character? If we believe firmly in original sin, it is possibly quite hypocritical and self-deceiving to give ourselves a pass when feel led to lie--even if it is for a good cause. So the tension remains alive and well, I think, in Bonhoeffer's thought. The line of good and evil runs through all of us; and even if some of us fall more clearly on the bright side of the line, it is tough for us to make that call ourselves about ourselves, is it not?

On the whole, good stuff today in PHIL 102. We got a real taste of ye old 'conflict of duties' gambit and saw it played out in the life of a great man of God. Thanks to the two groups who presented him and his legacy faithfully and well.

The Rule of Rigor

2007-10-18T08:44:00.000-05:00

Been thinking about my symbolic logic course a lot, as we have a 'quizam' coming up. (It's not exactly a quiz, nor quite an exam; therefore, quizam.) So I was poking around Peter Suber's otherwise excellent on-line resources on logic and I found this curious page justifying what he calls the "rule of rigor." And what a rule it is! My students ought to be glad that they don't have Peter Suber. He required his students to commute a conjunct from the left to the right-hand side of the conjunction as a whole

1. p • q (given)
2. q • p (Comm 1)

before inferring

3. q (Simp 2)

In other words, he says you can only simplify out the left-most conjunct.

Oh my. I would have open revolt in class if I made my students do that!

Now, don't get me wrong. There is a place for rigor in logic. A big place, in fact. I force my students to do double negation

7. D v ~F
8. ~~D v ~F (DN 7)

before going onto applying DeMorgan's

9. ~(~D • F) (DM 9)

even though everyone knows that you can easily go from step 7, with its non-negated D to DeMorgansing the whole proposition, just so long as you include a negation (~) before the conjunction and the D-term. Everyone knows it, but still, I tell them "Humor me." And really, just as Suber says, there is more to it than that. I think you are more prone to make a mistake, to forget the placement of negations in the above operation, if you do not write it all out. But for me, it is not rigor for its own sake, but for the sake of keeping things clear and as a heuristic for our memory in the midst of what can be a very complicated process.

Maybe I'll print out the above page and distribute it on Monday. It should earn me a little extra love on the eve of the quizam. Or so I hope!

Scalia on Faith & Judicial Philosophy

2007-10-18T06:43:00.000-05:00

How Justice Scalia does--or does not--integrate his Roman Catholic faith with his jurisprudence:

"Just as there is no 'Catholic' way to cook a hamburger," he said to a murmur of laughter, "I am hard-pressed to tell you of a single opinion of mine that would have come out differently if I were not Catholic."

Nonetheless, he continued, his Catholic faith obliges him to abide by two "commands" in his life and his work as a judge.

" 'Be thou perfect as thy heavenly Father is perfect.' And 'Thou shalt not lie,' " he said.

Those principles, he said, call him to be a strict constructionist of the law, one who does not "distort prior cases" or the Constitution in order to assert that certain rights are guaranteed under law.

As a result, he said, "I see no constitutional right to an abortion, just as I see nothing in [the Constitution] criminalizing or prohibiting abortion."

Scalia insists he is not out to impose his Catholic faith on the law. And he urges the rest of us to do likewise:

He concluded that Americans should disabuse themselves of the notion that "everything you care about personally is in the Constitution."

"Well, it's not," he said. "What it says, it says. What it does not say, it does not say.

"If that makes you sad, well . . . ," and he dropped his voice to a whisper: "It's not a perfect world."

Fascinating piece. Read the rest.

(H/T: T19.)

Quote of the Day

2007-10-17T20:43:00.000-05:00

Check out Chris Tilling's provocative post Cozy Bedfellows: Bultmann and Evangelicalism--yes, you read correctly:

It is the same spirit that animated Bultmann, albeit poured into a different mould, that gives Evangelicalism part of its glimmer of appeal.

I'm not sure I buy all he's saying--it's not perspicuous enough of a comparison--but it's an intriguing argument.

Good News in Iraq?

2007-10-16T06:09:00.000-05:00

I hope and pray that this report from Iraq is true:

[Violence levels dropping in Iraq] has little to do with the surge. The surge helps, but it could just as easily have lead to more violence not less.

The main driving force is the Awakening Movement that is sweeping the country. Al-Anbar has changed so completely that it is hardly believable. The Sunni parts of the rest of the country lag behind Al-Anbar and the Shia parts lag behind them, but I assure you the Awakening Movement is taking hold everywhere. And after the tribes clear the bad guys out of an area, they start right in forming parties and engaging good old fashioned messy, chaotic and dirty politics.

An Arab democracy is being formed here. Forming political parties and coalitions is the new growth industry. It is staggering just how enthusiastically Arabs take to this sort of thing.

I'll leave you once again with the the quote from Sheikh Sattar. Recall that Sattar was a small time Sheikh and one time insurgent from Al-Anbar (Anbar was by far the deadliest place to be during this war), who rid Al-Anbar of the insurgency and created the idea of the Awakening which has spread to all of Iraq:
"The Sahawa [Awakening] began because people thought the Americans were the enemy. We rose up and let the people see the truth - let them see that the Americans are here to help us. That was the true Awakening" - Sheikh Abdul Sattar Albu Risha, 26 May 2007.

We are winning this war. A year from now much of today's conventional wisdom will have been turned on its head.

If you, too, hope and pray for peace in Iraq, when is the last time we prayed for it? That is our work in this war. To help us, here is a prayer for Iraq (adapted from the Episcopal Church's Book of Common Prayer):

Almighty God,

Kindle, we pray, in every heart the true love of peace--and especially amongst those taking up arms in Iraq;

Guide with your wisdom those who take counsel over the fate of Iraq--be it the President of the United States, the Iraqi political leadership, the coalition military forces and other armed groups at work in the region;

Bring peace, justice and the rule of law to the people of Iraq, so that in tranquility your dominion may increase throughout the Middle East--and beyond--until the earth is filled with the knowledge of your love;

Through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Amen.

Gratitude for the Invisible

2007-10-15T08:02:00.000-05:00

I received another enriching word this morning. This time, in the form of a homily delivered by the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams at the opening of the Armed Forces Memorial in Staffordshire, England (H/T: Kendall Harmon). Not only is it a moving tribute to those who serve in the military--both past and present. It is also a profound meditation on gratitude, gratitude for the invisible order of things--an "endless generosity"--which we visibly celebrate in the liturgy:

And among the things we often prefer not to bring to mind is the fact that our ‘ordinary’ secure and fairly comfortable lives depend on a great deal of invisible work by others. It’s true at the most routine level. But today we think specially of those who have chosen to put their own lives at risk for the rest of us. Some of them are asked to exercise the greatest heroism; some are called to that less spectacular but still real heroism which is to hold themselves in readiness of mind and body for whatever may come. When we recognize our debt to them, it is not only to those who have served and struggled heroically but also to those whose daily work and faithful support make it possible for heroism to happen. When we say our thank you’s to them, it is to all of them.

And sometimes this feels awkward; we don’t always like to be reminded that we are all in need of protection and that we all depend on the generosity and discipline of a relatively small number of our fellow-citizens. Instead of feeling grateful, we feel embarrassed, and we’d rather not look and see the structures that support us. But it’s not good for us to train our eyes away from all this; and that is why we need visible memorials. All the service and skill that keeps us secure may be invisible a lot of the time, but, if we are not to be dishonest, shallow and unreal, we need to make the invisible visible once in a while. And that is what today is about - naming all those who have been ready to risk everything for the good of our national community, and indeed the good of our world. Some of them have died in heroic circumstances, some in tragedy and conflict, some in routine duties – but all of them as parts of a single great and generous enterprise.

To acknowledge this is indeed, in a very strong sense, a religious action. A person of faith is not simply someone who has certain abstract ideas in his or her head, but someone who is aware of being the focus of an endless generosity, someone who realises that God’s gift is all around, and that without this divine gift we should not exist. And they seek to make this awareness visible in public actions and public images – in the rhythms of daily prayer, in the visible offering of thanks to God. For Christians, the divine gift is seen most clearly in the death of Jesus, who died so that all human beings might have new life; and so we Christians make visible this event in gratitude by our sharing in the Holy Communion and by lifting up wherever we can the sign of the cross, the visible token of an invisible and eternal and unimaginably costly love.

Amen. Thanks be to God.

True Wealth

2007-10-15T06:58:00.002-05:00

These words came to me this morning as I prayed:

Rich in gratitude.
Rich in joy.
That is true wealth.

Amen. Thank you, Lord, for speaking to me this day.

A Blogging Milestone

2007-10-12T09:45:00.000-05:00

I'm thinking about blogging today because I just reached a certain milestone: my ten thousandth visitor! Or so sayeth my SiteMeter:Visit 10,000

Domain Name indiana.edu ? (Educational)
IP Address 156.56.193.# (Indiana University)
ISP Indiana University
Location
Continent : North America
Country : United States (Facts)
State : Indiana
City : BloomingtonIn the blogging universe, this is, of course, peanuts. Some blogs get 10K hits per day. Nevertheless, I am honored that some folks stop by here so regularly that I've even made it to this milestone.

Thanks for paying the Armchair a visit.

Now you know why. . .

2007-10-12T08:47:00.000-05:00

. . .I am not a famous blogger.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

Quote of the Day

2007-10-08T08:45:00.000-05:00

Have you noticed National Review's pledge drive theme? It would be useful when calculating Senator Clinton's fundraising achievements to include the amount of money she has helped raise for the GOP. Maybe someone could do the research and find how often she is included prominently on far right fund-raising materials. Lately, she's been driving traffic to Drudge and the New York Post.

It becomes increasingly clear to me that there is only one candidate who can unite the GOP and win the coming election for the Republicans. And she's ahead in the polls.
-Andrew Sullivan

Quote of the Day

2007-10-06T14:08:00.000-05:00

In the cycle America has been in since the sixties, the truth is barely relevant.
-Andrew Sullivan

Bonhoeffer on Material Blessings

2007-10-06T00:09:00.000-05:00

I wish I had come across this quote from Dietrich Bonhoeffer last week while I was preparing my homily. It sums up what I was trying to say in the last part of the sermon better than any words I eventually found.

If we want to understand God's goodness in God's gifts, then we must think of them as a responsibility we bear for our brothers and sisters. Let none say: God has blessed us with money and possessions, and then live as if they and their God were alone in the world. For the time will come when they realize that they have been worshipping the idols of their good fortune and selfishness. Possessions are not God's blessing and goodness, but the opportunities of service which God entrusts to us. (From A Testament to Freedom, p 197.)

This is so Bonhoeffer. The riches of God's grace, lavished upon us, are not mere 'free gifts' to do with as we please but rather opportunities, invitations to give more of ourselves.

Tonight, I am grateful that Bonhoeffer shared so freely of the inner wealth which God had bestowed upon him.

Amen.

We just can't hit

2007-10-05T00:49:00.000-05:00

Ramirez is at the plate with 2 men on and 2 out in the 9th. He's 0-8 in the series. Derrick Lee just struck out. Again.

And so did Aramis.

Could this be more disgusting?

We stranded 14. Or was it 16? It doesn't matter. We just can't get any hits when we need them.

Sick. The only way I've managed to stay sane is to post YouTubes. Sick, indeed.

Madden-ing

2007-10-05T00:38:00.000-05:00

I can't stand John Madden, but I love Frank Caliendo as Madden.

I'm reminded of that fact every time TBS cuts to a commercial break during these MLB playoffs. They advertise their new show with the great impersonating comic, Frank TV. Well, here's a Caliendo treat: him appearing as Madden on David Letterman.

At least Harry's in Mesa

2007-10-05T00:29:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Ryan Dempster's channeling:

Only Harry can save us now

2007-10-05T00:23:00.001-05:00

All the way from the heavens above, helping us forget our pain, it's beloved Harry Caray.

First Things on HoB Statement

2007-10-05T00:17:00.001-05:00

Jordan Hylden, a postulant in the Episcopal Church, kisses Richard John Neuhaus's butt with this round up of reactions to the House of Bishop's statement:

And as for Bishop Steenson and Cardinal Newman’s troubling conclusion about the incoherence at the heart of Anglicanism—one must at least wonder if the widespread confusion and cacophony within the Anglican Communion is a strong point in their favor, even if the Roman answer is illusory as well. At bottom it ought to lead Anglicans to hard questions about the nature of authority in the church, particularly as the Anglican covenant process moves forward. Bishop Steenson, a profoundly good and wise man, contended that Anglicans faced many of their problems because they had not yet opened “Peter’s gift.” No doubt many of us will want to ponder his parting query to us in the days to come.

It's midnight

2007-10-05T00:00:00.000-05:00

And it's only the bottom of the 6th. The game's been going for 3 hours.

The Cubs just scored two runs, only for Soriano to strike out again to strand a base runner. 8 to 4 is the score.

Sigh.

Kerry Wood's pitching now. The 5th Cub pitcher.

How much longer can I last? How much longer this last? It's like the Cub offense is going in slow motion.

3 up, 3 down. Thank you, Kerry.

Why Lou was not wrong

2007-10-04T23:16:00.000-05:00

The banter all day today was that Lou Piniella lost the game for us. He pulled Zambrano who was doing so well for Marmol who gave up the winning runs. But it was--and is--a dumb argument. If the Cubs had come up with a second run in the 8th or 9th inning, then (but only then) could you effectively make the argument that Lou made a mistake, because 2-1 would have made the difference in the game in the Cubs favor. But they scored no more runs. So it did not matter who gave up what runs in whatever innining. The Cubs ended the game where they were when Zambrano left the game: with one run.

The Cubs' problem was--and is--at the plate. For confirmation, look no further than tonight, where Cub bats have put up only two runs through 5 innings. That makes a grand total of 3 runs in 14 innings. Tonight, Lilly is the goat of the pitching staff; but again, don't get too worked up by the 6 runs he gave up, if the Cubs can't do better than 2.

Oh great. Scott Eyre just left the game in the 5th inning with a hand injury, Cubs down now 7-2. We're on our 4th pitcher in less than 5 complete innings of play.

Oh great, indeed.

Feast of St. Francis of Assisi

2007-10-04T00:17:00.000-05:00

Today is the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals and the environment. During our Thursday Morning Prayer service, we will remember St. Francis with this beautiful prayer attributed to him:

Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. Amen.

Biggest disappointment. . .

2007-10-03T23:52:00.000-05:00

. . .was Carlos Marmol. He's been almost unhittable this season in this stopper role in the 7th and 8th, but he came in the 7th and gave up the 2nd and 3rd runs. Sadly, he looked really out of sorts, maybe overwhelmed by the pressure of the post-season. I hope he settles down next game because we need him.

Lou's just speaking to the press and explains that he took Zambrano out after 85 pitches/6 innings because he's bringing Big Z back on three days rest and has an excellent pen (Marmol, Howry), so he trusts 'em. Lou knows what's up. It didn't work tonight, but he's not wrong in his decision, I think. Z was pitching well but after 6 innings, I think you might be playing with fire. Why risk it, when behind him you have Marmol, Mr. Lights Out.

I'm sad for both Carloses because they deserved better results tonight (though for different reasons).

Down 0-1

2007-10-03T23:41:00.000-05:00

Soriano just grounded into a 6-5 put out to end the game.

Once again, Cub bats were silent tonight. Soriano especially: 0-5. He was flailing away at the plate on that last at bat, down 0-2 when he made the final out.

Still, I'll wear my Cubs jersey tomorrow to campus. My team is down, not out.

Oh great.

2007-10-03T23:31:00.000-05:00

It's 11:31 and the Cubs are down 3-1 in the top of the ninth. With Valverde in the game.

One out now.

The game was sponsored by Cap'n Morgan. Looks like I might have to offer the cap'n a libation, an entreaty on behalf of the Cubs.

Sigh.

He's ahead of Theriot 0-2.

And then some dork behind home plate raises and flashes a big, round, neon red light.

"And now the Cubs are down to their last out," says dingy Dick Stockton.

It's 11:35 and Darryl Ward is pinch hitting.

I'll sign off now.

The NFL as Literature

2007-10-02T12:48:00.000-05:00

Taking the NFL epic-motif to new epic heights, my buddy Brett Foster elevates Peyton Manning and Tony Romo to the level of Odysseus and Horace. Oh my!

Muddle through the Messy Middle

2007-10-02T07:35:00.000-05:00

So sayeth +Ely:

Ely noted that Anglican theology embraces an approach known as the "via media" (Latin, for "the middle way.") In this "we understand that there's a pretty big umbrella, that comprehensiveness for the sake of truth is important, and that trying to narrow down things into black and white has never been part of the theology of Anglicans," he said. "So we live in that place of ambiguity and tension. And for those who have difficulty living in that place, our life as the Episcopal Church can seem very messy.

"But for those of us who live it, it may be a little messy, but it's not a mess that we care to change. I mean it's who we are. It's part of our identity, because we believe that the truth that the Spirit is helping us to discover is somewhere in midst of that diversity," he said. "So we value that diversity and invite the conversation, invite the dialogue."

There is this deafening noise in my ears right now, filling my head. I can hardly think. Like so many bees making a hive out of my brain, it's the buzzzzz. . .of buzz words.

Speaking of Civility. . .

2007-10-02T07:18:00.000-05:00

. . .an Ahmadi-Nejad postscript.

As I think about it, if I as a Christian were the president of a university introducing Ahmadi-Nejad, what would my introductory remarks have been? Would anything have been different?

Given my Christian convictions about civility, I think I might have revised my remarks somewhat. I would like to be just as direct as President Lee Bollinger, but perhaps less insulting of ("petty dictator") Mr. Ahmadi-Nejad. Then again, I wonder, given Ahmadi-Nejad's cultural background, if any criticism of a public official will always be taken by him as an insult. Nevertheless, and even if it is not received by him as such, we can speak in ways that are respectful but direct, not insulting but truthful. That's civility. I think it can be done, and I do believe I as a Christian have a special obligation to speak in such ways.

Mouw on Christian Civility

2007-10-02T07:07:00.000-05:00

Great story about Christian civility over at Rich Mouw's blog:

I gave a talk to a good-sized audience on a large university campus, on the subject of civility. The folks who attended were mainly from campus ministry groups, many of them evangelical. There had been some controversy over “culture wars” issues on that campus in recent months, and they asked me to address questions about how we can best deal with public controversies in a Christian spirit. One point that I made with a special emphasis was the need to talk with our opponents face-to-face, whenever possible, before going public with our criticisms.

Afterward the leaders of one of the evangelical campus groups came up to talk with me. They told me how they had run ads in the campus newspaper, stating the evangelical understanding of sexual fidelity, with some mention of their opposition to same-sex relationships. One of the gay-lesbian groups had countered with an angry published response, and they had gone back and forth a bit, trading letters to the editor. “It has gotten a bit out of hand,” they said. “Realistically, from your point of view, how should we have handled it differently?”

I told them that I thought they should have asked for a private meeting with the gay-lesbian leaders at the outset. They should have shown them the ads, and said, “We know you will disagree with our position, but we do want you to see this ahead of time. And if there is anything in here that you think seriously misrepresents your point of view, we want to know about it. We want to say what we believe, but we do not want to be needlessly offensive in doing so.”

The evangelical leaders thanked me for my advice, and they told me they wished they would have done the kind of thing I proposed.

Several weeks later, I received a note from one of them. “We met with the leaders of the gay-lesbian group—we invited them to lunch, and they accepted,” he reported. “We told them that we wish that we had contacted them privately before running our ad. We apologized for how we have typically gone about making our views known, and we asked their forgiveness. It started off awkward, but by the end of the conversation we were talking about other stuff, and then they said we should meet again, and the next time lunch was on them. I think we are on a new path—not compromising, but making our case in a kinder way!”

This group was learning good manners. Why is that so hard for Christians who talk so much about wanting to “reach people with the Gospel”? Why are we so afraid actually to “reach” out with an invitation to have lunch with folks with whom we disagree? Or maybe it is not so much that we are afraid, but that we don’t even think about the need to do that kind of thing. Why not?

Great story. I teach his book Uncommon Decency in PHIL 102 and it deals with exactly these kinds of issues. It is a challenging and relevant book for our day, thoughtful throughout, even where if you disagree with him. (Mouw mentions it earlier in the above post, and seems amused that IVP still has it in print. I can assure him, there is still a market for it). I'll have my students read this blog post as a kind of postscript/supplement to his chapter on sexuality.

As we approach the class session, I'll post the scenario I have my 102 students discuss about Christian responses to homosexuality and same sex unions. But I don't want to give it away. . .just yet!

A Victory for Free Speech

2007-10-02T06:28:00.000-05:00

I know it's old news, but this exchange was so rich--so great!--I have to post it, albeit belatedly:

We at this university have not been shy to protest the challenge -- and challenge the failures of our own government to live by our values, and we won't be shy about criticizing yours. Let's then be clear at the beginning. Mr. President, you exhibit all the signs of a petty and cruel dictator...

...Let me close with a comment. Frankly -- I close with this comment frankly and in all candor, Mr. President. I doubt that you will have the intellectual courage to answer these questions. But your avoiding them will in itself be meaningful to us. I do expect you to exhibit the fanatical mindset that characterizes so much of what you say and do. Fortunately I am told by experts on your country that this only further undermines your position in Iran, with all the many good-hearted, intelligent citizens there. A year ago, I am reliably told, your preposterous and belligerent statements in this country, as at one of the meetings at the Council on Foreign Relations, so embarrassed sensible Iranian citizens that this led to your party's defeat in the December mayoral elections. May this do that and more. (Applause.) I am only a professor, who is also a university president. And today I feel all the weight of the modern civilized world yearning to express the revulsion at what you stand for. I only wish I could do better.

--Columbia University's President Lee Bollinger,
introducing Iranian President Ahmadi-Nejad on 24 September 2007.

Now for the petty dictator's reply. . .

At the outset, I want to complain a bit on the person who read this political statement against me. In Iran, tradition requires that when we demand a person to invite us as a -- to be a speaker, we actually respect our students and the professors by allowing them to make their own judgment, and we don't think it's necessary before the speech is even given to come in -- (applause) -- with a series of claims and to attempt in a so-called manner to provide vaccination of some sort to our students and our faculty. I think the text read by the (dear ?) gentleman here, more than addressing me, was an insult to information and the knowledge of the audience here, present here. In a university environment, we must allow people to speak their mind, to allow everyone to talk so that the truth is eventually revealed by all. Most certainly he took more than all the time I was allocated to speak. And that's fine with me. We'll just leave that to add up with the claims of respect for freedom and the freedom of speech that is given to us in this country. In many parts of his speech, there were many insults and claims that were incorrect, regretfully. Of course, I think that he was affected by the press, the media and the political sort of mainstream line that you read here, that goes against the very grain of the need for peace and stability in the world around us. Nonetheless, I should not begin by being affected by this unfriendly treatment.

--President Ahmadi-Nejad's response to Bollinger's 'introduction'.

Frankly, this is the very best of American political liberalism. Let the guy have a stage because we believe in free speech, but let him hear the truth because we believe in truth, too. Both must go hand-in-hand.

Full text here.

H/T: Belgravia Dispatch

Threat Analysis

2007-10-02T06:21:00.001-05:00

More good, clear-headed strategic thinking by Greg Djerejian (of Belgravia Dispatch, guest blogging for Andrew Sullivan):

how did the attack on downtown Manhattan lead us to become involved in ostensibly decades long nation building efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq, and perhaps to come, a bombing campaign that would likely lead to a full-blown conflict with the Islamic Republic of Iran?

In my view, the greatest threat we face in the post 9/11 era are radicalized Islamists of mostly lower to middle class background who have grown up or emigrated to cities like Madrid, London, Paris, Hamburg, Milan. Don’t get me wrong. The comical shrieking about “Eurabia” and such is but thinly veiled Islam-bashing by primitives in the U.S. know-nothing media. But this moronic hyperbole aside, the radical Islamists who threaten us the most are those who have become technologically sophisticated, who perhaps speak our language, who can more easily appear ‘Westernized’, and meantime have become highly alienated by the West, basically the Mohammed Atta type. Which is to say, not rural peasants in the environs of Kandahar or impoverished Shi'a slum-dwellers south of Baghdad (nation-building efforts are not required to destroy any potential al-Qaeda sanctuaries, rather targeted military and intelligence efforts, and regardless the biggest such sanctuary is currently located within our ally Pakistan's territory).

Doctrinal Diversity. . .

2007-10-01T11:40:00.000-05:00

. . .within Anglicanism is a fact, and increasingly a regrettable one, especially if it is applied to the basic teachings of the church, as the Primus of Scotland apparently does:

People might comply to keep me happy when I am around, but then revert to something else again the minute I was on the road back home. Even in matters of basic belief. I do not question confirmation candidates as to whether they have been properly instructed - properly I mean to use the same words to express their faith as I use myself! I know that its quite likely that as I lay hands on folk what they believe or have been taught about the nature of the church; the meaning of the sacraments; the demands of discipleship in today’s world will be different from my convictions on these matters. Diversity is alive and well and thank God that it is.

I am not saying that it doesn’t matter what has been taught - I am saying that as a daily experience of life and faith there are varieties being lived out all the time . There was a period when orthodoxy was demonstrated by conformity - but this is one of those manifestations of church life that has gone and most of us would say that life is richer for that . We still all have our own preferred ways of doing things - but we give others the freedom to have their preferences as well.

Are there boundaries? Yes of course there must be boundaries - but not boundaries that repel and exclude. They must be boundaries that are flexible and allow some movement.

What is asked for at confirmation is a basic confession of the basic tenants of the Creed and the 39 Articles. Lots of other issues may be left for the individual to decide in his/her conscience before God. (E.g., predestination/election, high-/low-/mid-church ecclessiology, some latitude in sacramental theology, etc.). Those basics should not be that difficult to teach, nor for a bishop to lovingly and faithfully enforce across his (her?) cure. But the stark admission of this archbishop that he does not care to enforce such beliefs and rather sees it as exclusionary serves only to further doctrinal confusion and, ultimately, a watering down of the message of Christ and His cross. And that serves neither our Lord nor those under the church's care.

Statements such as these should be scandalous and shameful for any member of the clergy to voice, but sadly, it is par for the course in Anglicanism today.

When are we going to learn that negligence about the truth is the most hurtful, unloving thing of all?

Lord, have mercy.

(H/T: Anglican Mainstream.)

MCJ: "Another meeting, this time a big-ass one."

2007-09-28T23:37:00.000-05:00

"Yeah, that should solve everything." That's Chris Johnson's reaction @ MCJ to comments by +Lillibridge (Dio West Tex-ass), one of the "Windsor Bishops" claiming their might be another Windsor Bishop meeting post-HoB NOLA meeting. The whole post is a round up and take down of the strange post-game comments of the WBs.

A good read and, as always, a good chuckle.

"A force that needed to be stopped"

2007-09-28T20:35:00.000-05:00

That's how Dr. Chris Seitz, president of the Anglican Communion Institute, characterizes the Camp Allen bishops' presence in the House of Bishops. His recap of the meeting, especially of what happened to the CA initiatives, is mournful. I suspect there is much truth in what he writes:

It is hard to understand the dynamics from afar. It appears that efforts were made to enclose Camp Allen influence/people in the actual statement, and those who have spoken said that the statement was more than any asked for. I assume that, having see the resolutions (as a courtesy); then seeing them in public on the internet; being aware of Gregory Cameron’s presence at the last meeting; and the presence of senior Bishops and Archbishops in previous meetings; +Schori and advisors realized this was a force that needed to be stopped.

As for a minority report. What I gather from the single bishop I have spoken with, and from the comments of some I see on line, there was limited energy; they thought they got enough; some did object; the procedures were optimal in favour of dividing and quieting, and they succeeded.

I think it would be wise for CA bishops to make a formal statement. There are details we cannot know given the compression of the language. I saw something on the Telegraph about an Episcopal plan that had +Canterbury appointing the chair. Is that right?

Is this an outcome ACI wanted and worked for through long years? No.

At the same time, the Archbishop knows well from every single private communication where CA bishops stand. What will he conclude? He will conclude much as we have. That several CA bishops tried to work in charity to find a way forward. That they have stated their willingness to comply with Communion decisions to the point of being excluded themselves from Lambeth Conference.

But what then? Seitz is right that we are now in the "adjudication phase" of the Windsor Process, but events are overtaking the Communion, I am afraid. (Today's events, for instance, will accelerate the break up the Communion. More on those, later.)

A look at the other side

2007-09-28T20:24:00.000-05:00

It's been a hectic week, with me busy preparing a sermon in addition to my normal responsibilities, but I thought I'd link to another comment or two about the House of Bishop's Statement. This one comes from the progressive Episcopalian side. They seem to be equally unhappy with the bishops. This statement is not uncharacteristic of the banter I've read around the blogosphere or on the Episcopal Church's House of Bishops and Deputies listserve (on which I am a kibbitzer):

. . .the bishops are being either ingenuous or, more bluntly, hypocritical when they tout that "in Christ all God's children, including gay and lesbian persons, are full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church" while upholding -- and removing any ambiguity from -- B-033. We GLBT people are NOT full and equal participants in the life of Christ's Church so long as we are categorically barred from any ordained office, no matter HOW they try to spin it as a "season of waiting." It's total bulls**t, pardon my bluntness, and they should have the integrity to say right out that GLBT Episcopalians are second-class citizens being sacrificed for the idol of uniformity in the Communion. Or at least apologize for their treatment of us rather than patting themselves on the back for being so deftly political.

B-033 remains a pernicious evil and a sin against the Holy Spirit; until it is repealed we do against our GLBT brothers and sisters in the Church the very violence we condemn in others.

The same day the chair of Joint Standing Committee of the Primates (a group of 3 liberals and one conservative) issued TEC a clean bill of health, this reaction hit the 'net. And more such responses keep coming. It appears no one but mushy institutionalists are happy with what the bishops produced. And increasingly, those in the middle are being forced to choose. Let's hope that--finally--includes the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Whither the Windsor Bishops?

2007-09-26T08:19:00.001-05:00

Fr. Matt Kennedy has, to my mind, the most reasonable assessment of their silence:

What happened?

The answer to that question is fairly clear. Monday it was widely rumored and reported that the drafting committee had been working in consultation with members of the Joint Standing Committee and that some of those members were also in consultation with the Anglican Communion Office and, perhaps, no, probably, Lambeth.

The bishops on the floor knew this. They knew the Response had been vetted and given a pass at the highest levels.

The Windsor coalition collapsed because it was compromised from the beginning. It was grounded on the foundation of continued Communion participation. The non-Network, and even some of the Network bishops in the Windsor coalition, were concerned not so much with preserving the Faith as preserving communion with Canterbury.

Once it became clear that the Response was acceptable at Lambeth, opposition to it evaporated. The Dar Es Salaam plan died.

Read it all. There is much more to his analysis.

Then there is his bleak, damning conclusion:

The very sad thing is that the Windsor Bishops did not lose the fight.

They did not fight.

They embraced the duplicity, participated in the lie of this Response, despite the real souls and real lives at stake; because, apparently, they believe that it will win them access to Lambeth and peace for the duration of their careers.

And, of course, they are right.

And now, good bishops, think of all those people caught up in sexual sin, who are Sunday by Sunday, being led away in chains toward the darkness and away from Christ. What have you done for them?

You gave their false shepherds your consent. You stood aside. You let go the responsibilities of your office. You won a seat with Canterbury.

It is a sad, sad day.

A sad, sad day, indeed.

Wow. Even the NYT gets it.

2007-09-25T23:50:00.000-05:00

Hey, when even the New York Times cuts through the spin, we know that episcobabble has really, truly reached all time lows:

Episcopal Bishops Reject Anglican Church’s Orders

Bishops of the Episcopal Church on Tuesday rejected demands by leaders of the worldwide Anglican Communion to roll back the church’s liberal stance on homosexuality, increasing the possibility of fracture within the communion and the Episcopal Church itself.

After nearly a week of talks at their semiannual meeting in New Orleans, the House of Bishops adopted a resolution that defied a directive by the Anglican Communion’s regional leaders, or primates, to change several church policies regarding the place of gay men and lesbians in their church. But the bishops also expressed a desire to remain part of the communion, and they appeared to be trying to stake out a middle ground that would allow them to do so.

H/T: SF

What happened to Rex?

2007-09-25T22:52:00.000-05:00

Now that he's lost his starting job, I put Rex Grossman on the couch and play armchair psychologist over at our CBFF blog. Check it out. Let me know what you think.

Gotta love Brad Drell

2007-09-25T22:29:00.000-05:00

The Louisianan lawyer tellin' it like it is:

So, same sex blessings will continue unabated, they will continue to be public and announced in the paper and presided over by Episcopal clergy, including Bishop Bruno, the biggest liar I have ever seen and I am lawyer - I’ve seen some liars in my time. The fact that he said what he said in a press conference to the New York Times and everybody just boggles my mind.

All I can think to do is point out to the wider Communion how completely full of baloney this resolution is, because same sex blessings will continue unabated.

Doug LeBlanc is also right. . .

2007-09-25T21:22:00.000-05:00

. . .when he writes at Covenant:

Further, we live in a time when bishops (or primates) gather and issue high-minded statements about the Windsor Report, but then everyone goes home again and makes no significant change in actions. If conservative must live with The Episcopal Church establishing facts on the ground regarding pastoral blessings for same-sex unions, bishops of The Episcopal Church will have to live with conservatives primates’ establishing facts on the ground regarding geographical jurisdictions.

I wish it were not so. I wish both sides would give more than lip service to the disciplines of the Windsor Report. This much seems clear, several years into the Windsor discussion: Neither side is prepared to be fully Windsor-compliant. Neither side is prepared to make that level of sacrifice. I consider that an indictment of us all.

Though I find myself at an AMiA parish (for compelling, personal reasons), I agree that the tit-for-tat ecclesiastical warfare unleashed after GC 2003 is to the credit of no one. And I share LeBlanc's concern that conservatives are moving too quickly to dispense with ++Cantuar (I did not sign up for that with the founding of our parish). But it is important to insist that there is no moral equivalent between the 'border crossings' deplored by the bishops and the open rejection of 2,000 years of church teaching about human sexuality against the backdrop of hermeneutical and theological revisionism. Some wars are worth fighting, but it is always a matter of judgment. And such judgments are irreducibly singular, particular acts, highly contested and contestable. In this context, special acts of judgment are unavoidable, even called for. So let's not deplore too much those actions taken on behalf of the historic teachings of the church, because their motive ground is clearly solid, even if you might disagree with the particular application.

Then there's Canon Graham Kings. . .

2007-09-25T20:44:00.001-05:00

. . .an English 'open evangelical' priest and theological secretary of Fulcrum, with a penchant for weaving sows' ears into silk purses. . .:

So, in all, rather a refreshing and surprising end to the House of Bishops meeting. Sadly, it is unlikely to stop between three and five dioceses attempting to split off from The Episcopal Church in the near future, and to come under the jurisdiction of an African province. But encouragingly, it may well satisfy the majority of the Primates, and lead to larger-than-many-expected Lambeth Conference.

Ugh. Even his colleague at Fulcrum, Rev. Dr. Radner, was not nearly so sanguine as he.

I cannot understand how Canon Kings can be so sanguine about this statement. It is clear that the Communiqué language of stopping the 'local provision' finds no place in the HoB statement, and their admission that several dioceses do--and will continue to--tolerate as much is nothing short of walking a part from the Communion. In fact, they seem to imply they are biding their time until GC ‘09 to repeal B033 and get on with endorsing SSB rites (that is certainly Integrity’s plan and we all know that what Integrity wants, Integrity gets because “it’s a justice issue").

All that alone constitutes great grounds for concern, does it not? How can that be so easily accepted by the primates and the basis for a “larger-than-many-expected Lambeth Conference”? On my reading, this statement ramps up the pressure on the ABC to do something on behalf of the primates, because it is clear that TEC will only comply so far with Communion-wide teaching.

In fact, the House of Bishops just showed its resolve to split hairs and continue to resist the invitation to return to the Communion and its counsel expressed in Lambeth I.10, the Windsor Report, the Dar es Salaam Communiqué and the draft Covenant. If this statement is not received by the ABC as a significant failure to reengage the AC constructively, then I believe his authority as an Instrument of Unity is really, truly finished.

Kudos to Rev. Dr. Leander Harding

2007-09-25T20:32:00.000-05:00

As I continue to process responses to the HoB Statement, I must post another extraordinarily insightful comment from a godly Episcopalian theologian, Rev. Dr. Leander Harding of Trinity School for Ministry:

My primary reaction to the HOB document is that the majority of the bishops do not understand the gravity of the situation in the communion and the fragility of the communion at this moment. The premise of this document is that a promise not to give consent for another bishop in a same-sex relationship before the next Lambeth and a promise not to change the formularies and authorize “public rites” for same sex blessings will buy a place at the Anglican table and enable the American church to participate in communion synods as advocate for the gay agenda by pushing the listening process. The fundamental dishonesty of the situation with regard to same sex blessings where the permission is given not to ask for permission has not been lost on the press. It is hard to understand why the HOB thinks the rest of the communion should not feel that this is simple insincerity. The provision of a separate paragraph for pushing to have Gene Robinson included in the Lambeth meeting is a stunning bit of denial. Clearly if Gene Robinson is present at Lambeth in any kind of official capacity the attendance of Global South bishops will be dramatically reduced. If Rowan Williams allows his name to be invoked with impunity as the sponsor of that effort it will be another and perhaps final blow to his credibility.

Especially disappointing is the refusal to consult with the dissenting bishops to arrive at a scheme for alternative oversight that would be acceptable to them. Rather than offering another take or leave it plan an invitation to the dissenting dioceses to put forward a plan of their own would have communicated some Christian charity. The majority in the HOB seems to perfect the art of being poor winners.

The resolution does empower the presiding bishop to consult with the primates on a plan but there is no good faith gesture in the report that gives ground for hope of a real negotiation. I am very sorry that Bishop Howe’s plan was not given greater consideration.

The HOB has clarified that it commits itself not to give consents to another election like Gene Robinson. It continues to claim that encouraging local option for same sex blessings shouldn’t be communion breaking as long as “public rites” are not authorized. This seems to me to be a claim that we should be able to violate our own rules as long as we do it quietly. I can’t imagine the primates buying it.

In sum the document brings the communion closer to schism. If Rowan Williams does not now disassociate himself from the American church leadership and its intransigence he will become irrelevant as a force for keeping the communion together and the break between the Global South and the rest of the communion will be accelerated.

This is plain speaking analysis in the face of arrogant double-talk on the part of those tasked to serve Christ's church.

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

My Comment at SF

2007-09-25T20:23:00.000-05:00

I'm trying to get a comment up at SF (their server is clogged), and once it do, it will read as follows. It begins with my citing a another commenter:

I certainly hope that ++Rowan will do something - ANYthing - but have given up hope that he will respond. Our best hope is the primates, and surely they see through this as easily as we all do. Let your “yes” be yes, and your “no” be no - something all of the purple shirts seemed to have missed here.
Yes, I wonder if ++Rowan will continue to embrace a deontological reading of his catholic principle of 'keeping everyone at the table.' If the table is perpetually being overturned by one (or more) party, is it even a gathering space? Or if the words spoken at table are prevaricating, dissimulating words, is it really a conversation? Right now, we know that the leadership of TEC is not going to practice anything like mutual submission in love--so why must we who will submit, gladly and wholeheartedly, continually submit to their unloving, abusive wills?

I have said it a million times and I say it again: ++Rowan can withdraw invitations to Lambeth, ++Rowan can refuse ++KJS a seat at the table with other primates--if he wills it. Those are his prerogatives as ABC. His is a power to invite, to call the meeting. And he can make those choices on behalf of catholic order within the Communion--if he wills it. So if he values catholicity so much, then please, Your Grace, make the only catholic choice available: refuse the abusers the right to abuse anymore.

Yes, thank you, Ephraim+

2007-09-25T20:09:00.000-05:00

The remorse is palpable in Fr. Ephraim Radner's spot-on comment at SF:

This is at best a 40 out of 100, with respect to the Primates’ questions. The issue of election and consecration of bishops was clarified as the Primates requested and in the direction they wanted. The issue of same-sex blessings was, as many have quickly pointed out, dodged in a long-familiar way, but in a way that actually avoided contfonting the Primates explicit question of “permission” of, and not simply authorizing public rites. A relatively clear “no” to the Primates. The issue of pastoral oversight was left muddy, but with a reiteration of the earlier clear “no” to the actual suggestion of the Primates. For lack of any other proposal offered by the American bishops, this can only be seen as an attempt to obfuscate and buy time, without any cost. The other statements are boilerplate. In the end, the response must be construed as a failure to meet the Primates’ requests, although one made with some very small gestures in their direction. and others made to emphasize their disagreement with the Primates.

It is not surprising that this kind of statement would come out of the diverse and unevenly divided House, faced with the various pressures it has been feeling. The House of Bishops is not capable of acting as a body. This is a part of the judgment it carries. For that matter, it reflects what may be becoming clear on a larger stage: the Anglican Communion itself is not capable of acting as a body. What then? The analogy with a human body could go in a number of directions: paralysis, coma, seizures, spasticity, death. Who knows? Maybe even eventual healing. The claim to “health through amputation” (made by some in this case), however, strikes me as a naive hope that will resemble in the end the knight in Monty Python’s Holy Grail movie, only here the victim of his own weapon and no another’s. All the more liable.

Is there a minority report? I hear no mention of one. It doesn’t matter if the task of the HoB was impossible. Inevitable failures are still useless, and still to be rejected, despite their unavoidable nature. Those bishops who understand this should at least say so, and not only in lonely whispers.

The main concern right now is whether any of the Camp Allen/Windsor Bishops issue a minority report/dissenting statement. And by the sound of it (Those bishops who understand this should at least say so, and not only in lonely whispers...), Ephraim+ is not sanguine about it appearing any time soon.

Sad, sad, sad. That's all you can say.

Amen, Kendall+

2007-09-25T19:37:00.000-05:00

Praise God for the Canon Theologian of South Carolina:

The voice of self-proclaimed prophecy has been replaced by the murmur of expediency.

A great opportunity was lost.

What was it I asked at the beginning of the meeting: Is the leadership of the Episcopal Church going to be honest about what they really believe and are doing or will they hide behind an institutional and verbal smokescreen? They opted for the second.

Here's the full-text of the bishops' "sacrificial" (+KJS) work on behalf of the Communion.

Lord, have mercy.

Christ, have mercy.

Lord, have mercy.

All too believable

2007-09-25T13:18:00.000-05:00

From Anglicans United HoB Report #10 (sent via e-mail):

This morning we received the statement to the House of Bishops from the Consultation from the gay lobby, Union of Black Episcopalians, Episcopal Network for Economic Justice and the Episcopal Ecological Network. It contains a very interesting paragraph:
We have in mind the language of the Baptismal Covenant which calls us to respect the dignity of every human being. It is not respectful of our lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered sisters and brothers when we tell them that they are full participants in the church and then place restrictions of their participation at any level of the church’s life.
So, baptism is the entry door and once baptized, all ministries in the church MUST be open to all. Not a calling, but a civil right. There are no other thresholds or criteria. Just baptism. Last week, this notion of baptism was expressed by members of the House to the Archbishop. He was stunned that baptism was being interpreted in this way and said he had never heard of this before. It was a completely new interpretation to him. He also said he would reflect on this theory and get back to them. Sorry, Your Grace. That horse has left the barn.

Amen, and amen. Sad, but too true: we Episcopalians are only too used to this level of theological reasoning.

Cherie Wetzel has been doing first rate work reporting, commenting on and sending forth prayer requests from the HoB meeting. Thank you, Cherie, for your tireless efforts.

Now, I wonder how ++Rowan will respond. A transcript of remarks yesterday in Kentucky by Archbishop of Uganda, Henry Orombi, includes this juicy morsel:

Rowan Williams regards many in TEC as being so long without Christian teaching that “they don’t know their right hand from their left.” (Here Orombi is quoting Williams.)

I wonder if he had reasoning of the above sort in mind. We can only hope.

MAA III

2007-09-25T08:39:00.000-05:00

This is my final post on the Midwest Anglican Awakening.

First, an excellent recap of the event from At a Hen's Place. She's got better pix than I do, and includes a great Lon Allison quote from the luncheon (which I also attended).

Speaking of which. . .one last photo, this time of the protesters as they gathered ca. 10AM. Their numbers grew somewhat (to 2 dozen by my estimate). Even as I stood there taking this photo, another van pulled up. (And no, that guy on the right was not dressed in clerical garb.)

"Alas for those who are at ease in Zion. . ."

2007-09-25T07:17:00.000-05:00

I'm the homilist this weekend at Church of the Savior and the lectionary readings are tough. Those potent words (above) from Amos headline the Old Testament reading, and all the readings offer strong teachings about wealth and affluence. They culminate in the difficult parable in Luke of the rich man in hell, pleading with Abraham to send someone to warn his heirs of the dangers of wealth. So, yes, I--the senior warden, in the middle of a budget drafting season--am preaching about the no-win, impossible topic: money.

I am reminded of a link I received many months ago to globalrichlist.com. The site uses readily available statistics about global poverty to calculate how rich you are on a comparative basis. Let's just say that on my salary alone, I rank in the top 1% in the world. When you combine my salary with my wife's, we together rank in nearly the top .5%. By American standards, in DuPage County, IL, we are well off but not rich. Not close. But the global perspective is striking. That's the point of the site. Along with your own shocking, personal results, you are confronted by astounding statistics about global poverty:

$8 could buy you 15 organic apples OR 25 fruit trees for farmers in Honduras to grow and sell fruit at their local market.

$30 could buy you an ER DVD Boxset OR a First Aid kit for a village in Haiti.

$73 could buy you a new mobile phone OR a new mobile health clinic to care for AIDS orphans in Uganda.

$2400 could buy you a second generation High Definition TV OR schooling for an entire generation of school children in an Angolan village.

DID YOU KNOW..?

Three billion people live on less than $2 per day while 1.3 billion get by on less than $1 per day. Seventy percent of those living on less than $1 per day are women.

My struggle with this sermon and these stats is that such knowledge is absolutely essential for us, for those who are, indeed, very much "at ease in Zion." The global perspective is essential for understanding the Christian's stance on wealth and poverty because, I am convinced, it is also part of God's perspective. But it is also overwhelming. So it often generates despair, even cynicism for the systemic problem admits of no real solution by single individuals (or even a lot of individuals joined together). The degree of global financial inequality is truly astounding. The causes are complex, and we all are implicated but not implicated equally. What on earth ought we to do?

Of course, I am convinced that this issue is so difficult for Americans because it strikes so close to home, and requires a degree of clarity about ourselves--about our assumptions regarding money that so often go unquestioned and our motives in thinking and behaving the way we do. I was given this phrase as I was reflecting on my sermon the other day: Somehow, in the land of plenty, plenty is not enough. I know that this statement indicts me more often than I'd like to admit. Somehow, in the land of plenty, plenty is not enough.

The biblical perspective is, however, clear enough and can help us get clear about what is truly important (whether it reflects our hearts and lives or not). At root, I think it is not so much about money but about idolatry, about anything that might get in the way of living with gratitude and a free spirit before the Lord--a spirit that is ready and waiting to relinquish all to Him, whenever or what measure He calls us to give of ourselves. If He blesses us monetarily, then we need to be prepared to give it back. We must be free enough from whatever it is, in order to allow God to exercise His executive authority over it and us. And lest we are inclined to exempt ourselves (because, compared to someone out there, we ourselves may not be rich), God has blessed us all richly, in one way or another. That is our wealth. And we are each wealthy in some way or another. So, in turn, God expects us to live generously, not just from our excess but from the blessings He has given us, just as they are. It is His call, not our own. He's the primary stakeholder in our corporation, not us. But how often do we simply forget?

Time and again as I have prepared for this sermon, I have been reminded, first, of just how many and how rich are my blessings. But second, if I really, truly believe I am dependent upon God for my everything--for my every need, every want, every possession--and if I really, truly believed that all I have is really, truly His, why do I cling so stubbornly to some blessing or another? Or get so easily frustrated and impatient when some blessing is denied me? Or taken away? The challenge of monetary affluence is the way it can insinuate itself into every area of our lives without us really noticing, and that before long, it becomes the norm and not God's Word. That is the challenge of this sermon, but more importantly, the challenge of this sermon to me.

I would appreciate your prayers as I conclude my preparations for Saturday night and would invite you to reflect on these crucial matters for yourself.

Pray for the House of Bishops

2007-09-25T06:39:00.000-05:00

Please light a candle and pray right now for the Episcopal House of Bishops, as they finalize their statement and conclude their meeting in New Orleans. Above all, pray for the courage to speak honesty and clearly.

Please light a candle:

1. Drag the match to the wick.

2. Once the candle lights, drag the match back to the bottom.

Requires Flash Player 6 or above (Source: Mission St. Claire)

MAA II

2007-09-24T08:10:00.000-05:00

Two excellent observations at T19 about the Midwest Anglican Awakening by Alan Jacobs and Barbara Gauthier, respectively. First, Alan corrects the skewed perspective of this story in the Chicago Tribune:

In a sermon on a wholy different subject, the one passing mention of sexual sin—and not, let us be clear, homosexuality, but rather the kinds of sexual sin that anyone can be guilty of—becomes the lead in the Trib. It is hard not to see this as simple dishonesty.

The purpose of the gathering (whose formal name was “Midwest Anglican Awakening") was to exhort Chicago-area Anglicans to bring the Gospel power of life-transformation to the people around them. Archbishop Akinola’s chief message was that this is where we find true unity: in the common experience of being transformed by Christ, and the common task of sharing that transformation with others.

Then Barbara picks up on the part of ++Akinola's sermon that spoke to me the most--the mission field within each of us to conform to image of Christ:

The part of ++Akinola’s sermon that struck me was his insistence on the transforming power of the Gospel to conform us to Christ. The mission field is whatever in the world is not conformed to Christ. That mission field is found first of all within me, in those areas in myself that are not conformed to Christ. When I have been fully transformed by the power of the Gospel only then can I take the power of the Gospel into the mission field around me to transform the culture.

The other part that so impressed me was at the very end just before the benediction He wanted to teach us a Nigerian song about the Holy Spirit that asks God to send down His Holy Spirit, his anointing, his healing down from heaven. He said he wasn’t much of a singer so he began to recite the words and asked if anyone knew it. All the Nigerian hands shot up immediately and they sang the first verse with the Archbishop and then started the song over so we non-Nigerians could join in as one—and it was indeed as one. We were even then enjoying the first fruits of the unity he had preached on. Then after singing down the power of the Holy Spirit, he prayed for all those who were in need of healing --physical, emoitional or spiritual. He said the Lord is present here to heal, He has the power to transform you now.

Then as he stood by the altar, he asked us all to kneel for the benediction, including the numerous clergy and musicians on stage who knelt as well. I thought surely this is what it must have been like in the first-century church when the apostle Peter gave his blessing to the believers gathered around him after preaching the power of the Gospel.

I am glad the Internet allows us to hear the first-hand perspectives of people like Alan and Barbara whom I respect, and not just those of a reporter who do not know at all.

The Midwest Anglican Awakening

2007-09-23T23:03:00.000-05:00

I hope to post some further comments tomorrow, but here are a few first-hand observations from the Midwest Anglican Awakening, held this morning in Wheaton College's Edman Chapel. Of course, all the ballyhoo surrounded our homilist, Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria. Protesters and press could not, though, dampen the spirits of those inside.

Though plugged by no less than Fr. Jake, there were roughly only 30 protesters peacefully gathered outside Edman (and not the 50 that the organizers hoped for). Even Bishop Persell's denunciation does not appear to have rallied the troops against ++Akinola's visit.

By my estimate, the service drew in approximately 1,800 worshipers from 20 Anglican congregations from across the Midwest (though the Trib stories put the number at 2,000).

Although he said nothing specifically about the protesters, the Episcopal Church or the crisis within the Communion, ++Akinola said enough indirectly in a strong homily on--ironically enough--unity. His central point was that the Gospel is the only power sufficient to transform and to unite the body of Christ. A rough quote/paraphrase: The Gospel is the condition of all unity in the Christian church. Do not create unity by fiat or wishful thinking. Or another: Remember TINA--there is no alternative [to the Gospel].

In short, it was a classic of Fed Con ecclessiology, for those readers familiar with the Stand Firm typology. But I won't get into all that tonight. I took extensive notes, so more on this, perhaps, tomorrow.

Most moving of all, though, were those 1,800 voices united in reverent praise and joyous adoration of the Lord Jesus Christ. Stylistically, it was the eclectic mix so typical of AMiA parishes. It ranged from the magnificent pipe organ rocking the foundations during classic hymns like "All Creatures of Our God and King" (the Processional) or "Christ is Made the Sure Foundation" (the Recessional) to an exuberant celebration, complete with African drums, that erupted as three Nigerian women lead a praise chorus during the eucharist. Normally a fidgety two year old, my son sat transfixed on my lap throughout the entire eucharist. Yes, it was that compelling.

At the end of the service, ++Akinola paused for a moment to lead us in a chorus to be sung as a prayer for the sick. But to lead us he first had to teach us, since only the Africans knew it. He patiently restrained the Africans from harmonizing until we learned the melody, and that elicited a big laugh. Then, to conclude, he asked us to kneel to receive the blessing and then warmly proclaimed:

Christ the Sun of Righteousness shine upon you and scatter the darkness from before your path, and the blessings of God Almighty, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, be among you and remain with you always.

In both gestures, I felt we were offered a glimpse of an enormous pastoral heart.

More. . .later. . .

(c) 2007 Stephen D. Lake

Dan Hampton Strikes Back. . .

2007-09-22T12:47:00.000-05:00

. . .at the pathetic Bears offense:

"The greatness of the defense was wasted by the ineptitude of the offense in San Diego, and two defensive starters were hurt, and instead of bouncing back against a putrid K.C. defense, the offense staggered around like bums at midnight.

"All we heard in camp was the hoopla about all the offensive weapons, and the explosive running game, and how Rex was about to blossom, and last time I checked, their only TD was scored by a 315-pound offensive tackle."

I hate to say it because I genuinely like Rex Grossman, but I do ultimately agree with Hampton. And the thing is, I think the Bears do, too. Lovie Smith will not tolerate another 2 games like the first two.

The countdown is on: if Rex does not turn the offense around in the next 2 games, I predict he will be benched and his time as a Bear will effectively be done. He has Sunday night's game against the Cowboys and the 30th at Detroit to get things sorted out. If not, mark my words: Brian Griese will be starting by the time we play in Green Bay on 7 October. And barring injuries, Rex will not see the field as a Bear ever again.

Heidegger's Hut (Huette)

2007-09-20T16:53:00.001-05:00

Here's Martin Heidegger's hut, his philosophical hideaway, where he'd go to think deep thoughts
One person's quest to find it is a philosophical meditation all its own:

After a few wrong turns and a steep final ascent, we at last saw a small wooden arrow with the words Martin Heidegger Rundweg carved into it. A few hundred yards away was a sign with a photo of the aging Heidegger, looking frankly smug, and a short text with the incipit: “Wer gross denkt, muss gross irren”: “He who will think greatly, must err greatly.” I thought this was funny. A few hours later, I found it less so.

. . .The first sign we had seen told us that the Martin Heidegger Rundweg was precisely 6.4 kilometers long and had five informational points like the first one. Rundweg means a circular path, and finding it on the sign seemed perfectly normal, but when we failed to reach the next information point the expected 0.4 kilometers later, the word began to play upon our minds. Heidegger had been fascinated by paths and circles, and often invoked “the hermeneutic circle.” . . .Heidegger wrote about situations where “what is at issue is not avoiding the hermeneutic circle, it is in entering it in the right way.” Circular forms of reasoning could not be everywhere and always shunned—and nothing was gained by trying to avoid them. Everything instead depended “on how one entered the circle.” My wife and I had entered the circle of the Martin Heidegger Rundweg at the beginning and were enjoying the tree-lined peaceful walk bathed in afternoon sun, with its intermittent glimpses through the trees of the valley below and the mountain tops in the distance. But the trail markers that had been accompanying us seemed to have disappeared. Our goal—the information point that the first panel told us would be called “Heidegger’s Hut: Why the Hut is Not a Museum”—was nowhere to be found.

In philosophy, as with the martial arts, a little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing.

A great read.
H/T: AJ.

Pray for the Episcopal House of Bishops

2007-09-20T00:30:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Fr. Chip Johnson for this exquisite prayer on behalf of the bishops of the Episcopal Church, gathered in New Orleans with the Archbishop of Canterbury:

Almighty and everlasting God,

who by thy Holy Spirit didst preside in the Council of the blessed Apostles, and hast promised, through thy Son Jesus Christ, to be with thy Church to the end of the world;

We beseech thee to be with the Archbishop of Canterbury, his Standing Committee, and the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, meeting in New Orleans, in thy Name and Presence.

Save them from all error, ignorance, pride, and prejudice; of of thy great mercy vouchsafe, we beseech thee, so to direct, sanctify, and govern them in their work, by the mighty power of the Holy Ghost, that the comfortable Gospel of Christ may be truly preached, truly received, and truly followed, in all places, to the breaking down the kingdom of sin, Satan, and death; till at length the whole of thy dispersed sheep, being gathered into one fold, shall become partakers of everlasting life; throught the merits and death of Jesus Christ our Savior.

Amen.

Darwin Award Nominee

2007-09-19T09:48:00.000-05:00

Notice how the guy just happens to look down and notice he's got a rattlesnake in his hand, as he goes to pass a beer to one of his buddies. As if, Woah, dude, where did that come from?! Kewwwlllllll!
H/T: SF

Philosophical Autobiography IIIa

2007-09-18T22:45:00.000-05:00

Here's another entry in my philosophical autobiography. This one abruptly breaks off mid-stream, and I hope to come back to it shortly. I wrote this for the first meeting of our Senior Seminar (PHIL 401), whose topic has occasioned these autobiographical reflections. I apologize, though, that this one is so abrupt, but we were working under limits and I stopped at the end of a thought, though not the end of the story.
* * *
Why philosophy? I was asked that question several times by students already this term. It almost always comes up in any substantive conversation about my work as a philosopher. What led you into this discipline? And why do you stay? That’s the gist of the question, and my answer itself always involves a bit of philosophy.

I almost always begin my answer by recalling my youthful crisis of faith.

I had been raised in a Christian home, the son of a theology professor/ordained minister. From my earliest days, I had been taught to believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and savior, and I was an obedient son. I believed. And I practiced the faith as I had been taught. That’s not to say, though, that my childhood faith was disingenuous, or that I was merely mimicking the faith of my parents. No, I had experienced great joy in hearing the word preached, in prayer and in reading the Bible. I had also experienced what I could only identify as the Holy Spirit moving in my life, especially as I struggled with a severe congenital heart and had open heart surgery at the age of four. In fact, I still remember events surrounding the surgery quite vividly. I remember the love and support of family members, and most of all, the night I asked my mother to kneel with me at my toy box and prayer with me to accept Jesus into my heart. A few weeks later, I had my surgery but by all accounts, and amidst my family’s own fears, I exuded the peace that passes all understanding. The surgery was so successful that I have never had any physical restrictions or repercussions from it. And I, too, grew up praising the Lord Jesus Christ for saving my life.

But something happened during my sophomore year in high school. I can remember the morning very vividly, too, where I woke up and felt the bottom had fallen out of my faith. As I stood in the shower, I felt an encroaching darkness—the darkness of doubt and fear—as I was haunted by questions I was totally unprepared to answer: What if everything I have been taught to believe were a lie? What if this faith I held to be true is not real? What if all those feelings of joy in prayer or worship were just projections of my own—vain—hopes and wishes for a god-like protector? What if there was no God out there after all? What if there was only a deep, dark void of nothingness at the heart of this universe? What if?

These questions badgered me. Just when I thought I could answer one, just when I’d trot out some line I’d heard from a pastor or friend, I instantly imagined the skeptic’s reply. It was as if a skeptical accuser had taken residence inside my head, interrogating every answer to every question with an unrelenting ruthlessness I experienced as vicious, harsh, unforgiving. In my youthful evangelical categories, I was sometimes inclined to identify the accusing voice of skepticism and doubt as satanic. And, in fact, from where I sit today, it could well have been; but from where I stood then and even now, to blame it on Satan was simply a strategy of evasion, not of honesty. If I could not confront these doubts head on, then I was blind indeed. So it mattered little who or what was the origin of the questions, as much as the questions themselves. I had to find an answer.

So it was that I found myself feeling the undertow of doubt. Days lapsed into weeks and, if I recall correctly, months. Along the way, I might experience a momentary buoying of my spirit--maybe it was a particularly helpful conversation with my youth pastor or an answer I might discover to a question that would ‘work’ well enough--until, inevitably, doubt would pull me back under. Feelings of certainty would give way to doubt. And I was back struggling to find the surface air again. It was intense.

What had brought on this sudden crisis of faith?

My father had done a dangerous thing: he had given me a book. It was not a philosophy book per se, though it contained a lot of philosophical ideas. It was the best-selling work of popular psychology, M. Scott Peck’s The Road Less Traveled. Peck’s teaching of self-discipline and self-knowledge was a potent and syncretistic mixture of Freudian psychoanalysis with Christian and Buddhist ideals, all to the drumbeat of the Socratic dictum to Know thyself! My father liked that Peck sought to replace permissive psychobabble, so common in the genre and in our society as a whole, with the language of faith and responsibility. But the faith Peck advised was unknown to me. It was experimental and exploratory. It was an adventure in self-criticism, an open-ended search for authenticity, not a life of obedience and adherence to a standard, orthodox set of beliefs and practices. My faith had been entirely wrapped up in latter, in obediently following what I had been taught from my birth. How could I ever square the horizon-exploding insights of a Peck with what I had been taught? The what if?-question had me so vexed I could not see any way out. At least any satisfactory way.

To be continued. . .

On the Fine Art of Outlining

2007-09-18T22:24:00.000-05:00

One of the most valuable skills I learned as a Wheaton College philosophy major was how to outline the argument of a philosophical text. Art Holmes taught me that in History of Philosophy and I, today, pass that lesson along to my students in PHIL 202 History of Philosophy II. Well, today, was the day that they had to submit outlines of Descartes's Meditations. What follows is the instructions I shared with them. I initially drew them up a couple of years back and revised it slightly this time around. I thought I'd post it here since it reflects some of important commitments I think are worthy of anyone's consideration. Enjoy!
(Headpiece courtesy of Paul J. Dupuy, Jr..)
* * *

On the Fine Art of Outlining

By Stephen D. Lake, Ph.D.

Step 1. As you read a primary text, read with a pencil in hand. It is, dear student, a sacrilege to write in a book in ink, for the only words that ought to be in ink are those of its author, not of any commentator. Pay the author the respect of setting down your words in an impermanent medium—in pencil lead, or graphite, not in ink.

Step 2. Each time the author makes a new or significant point, summarize it briefly with a phrase or two in the margin. Pick out each meaningful aspect of the text. One way to do so is to underline the thesis statement of each paragraph. Then, with your marginal comment, sum up only the major, most significant theses, and their support.

For example, in Descartes’s Meditation I you might find yourself writing: “Senses unreliable because. . .” and then as you go, enumerate each of the several reasons he gives for doubting the reliability of the senses: 1, 2, 3, etc. It is best to use terse phrases like: “Past Deception” or “Possible Evil Demon.”

Your marginalia are to be like tasteful detailing on a car: to accentuate the fine lines of a car, or its look and feel, you add a pinstripe here or some chrome there. They should not be gaudy flames or a trashy spoiler! Careful point-by-point detailing of the text makes the salient points stand out. It extracts the narrative flow of the text and furnishes you with the raw materials from which you shall now fashion an argumentative outline. It is not yet, however, your outline.

Step 3. You may now begin tracing the text’s line of argument beyond its narrative flow. In order for your collection of points to become an argumentative outline, you need to find the argument within the various points and organize them accordingly. That is to say, your points must be organized as premises in support of various conclusions.

Logically speaking, a premise is a reason that justifies, proves or provides warrant for a conclusion. For any claim a philosophical author makes you must assume there is at least one reason(s) that supports it. In other words, for every conclusion, there is a premise(s).
Your task is to discover in the text every major argument and any minor argument that serves to support a major argument.

Rule 1: Label each conclusion with a C and each premise with a capital P and its respective number. Again, to use the Descartes example, your conclusion might be:

C: Therefore, the senses are an unreliable foundation for our knowledge.

And the 4 or 5 reasons Descartes gives in support of that conclusion should appear as premises (P1, P2, P3, etc.):

P1: My senses have occasionally misled me.

Rule 2: Each conclusion or premise must be in the form of a complete sentence. Unlike your marginalia, arguments are stated as propositions, where some predicate is asserted of a subject. Only propositions that assert something about a subject can be true or false. So formulate each step of the argument as a proposition.

Here are some further tips:
Tip 1: Work backwards from conclusion(s) to premise(s). As you go back through your marginalia and the text, ask yourself: What is the major conclusion(s)? Once you identify a major conclusion, you can then discover (and often quite easily) the various premises. You should then have at least an basic idea of what to look for, because a conclusion can only be supported so many ways. The conclusion, “The sky is blue,” will not be supported by the claim, “Some of the paint on the Sistine Chapel is blue” but will be by “The composition of the earth’s atmosphere is 78% nitrogen and 21% oxygen.” That might seem obvious but I can assure you, finding arguments is often that simple—if you start with the conclusion and work backwards.

Tip 2: Do not be satisfied with mere assertions. A conclusion without premises is an assertion. Read the text carefully enough to discern the adequate support (premises) for any given conclusion. If you think you have found a mere assertion, you probably have not looked hard enough.

Tip 3: Be precise and include enough detail. If your conclusion for Meditation I had been,

C: Therefore, the senses are unreliable

it would have been too vague and lacking in crucial detail. Descartes is clear: he is looking for a specific kind of knowledge—foundational knowledge—to make sure his system of beliefs is secure. While he does suspect the senses in general, his point is more specific. The senses are inadequate as a foundation for our beliefs, not just in general.

Tip 4: Do not worry if. . . It is all right if some premises appear in more than one argument; or some conclusions serve as premises in another argument(s); or if an argument has only one premise.

Step 4. Label each argument and group them around the major divisions of a text. For example, I expect that for each of the 6 Meditations that there will be several arguments—and sometimes arguments within arguments, where a conclusion of one serves as a premise for another. For clarity’s sake, make up a descriptive heading of your own for each Meditation (I-VI) and do the same for each argument within each Meditation.

Here you can be creative and come up with classics like, “The Unreliability of the Senses Argument.” I defy you to be more creative than that!

Communion with Canterbury I

2007-09-14T12:50:00.000-05:00

As the Anglican Communion teeters on the brink of collapse, I've been pondering my fate as an Anglican. The question that's been on the minds of many conservative Anglicans such as myself is, Is being in communion with the see of Canterbury necessary for being an Anglican? Today, many conservatives have already answered this question in the negative. It appears as if the Anglican Communion Network and its Common Cause partners are moving steadily in that direction, with many of the sponsoring Global South primates preparing to break with ++Cantuar and establish an alternative north American province, if orthodoxy and orthopraxy are not restored.

While I am sympathetic to this approach--and may ultimately come down on that side of the issue--I myself am still torn on this question. I was a member at the Anglican pro-cathedral in Brussels for 7 or 8 years, confirmed as an Episcopalian upon my return to the U.S. and am now a senior leader in an AMiA parish. But things have changed since Church of the Savior was founded in October of 2004 and I find myself revisiting the question. By no means did I join an AMiA parish with the expectation that I would be departing from communion with the most historic see within Anglicanism. In fact, it was the fact that ++Rwanda was in communion with ++Cantuar that offered me the consolation that the Anglican Mission was genuinely an Anglican mission. Even if it was not currently recognized by the ABC himself, I thought it only a matter of time. (A glimpse at the history of Anglicanism offered me every reason to hope that the AMiA would, eventually, be recognized.) But now that recognition is not so certain, as our sponsoring primate prepares, it seems, to break communion with Canterbury.

As I consider this question, I was impressed by a piece by Chuck Collins at SF. His main contention is that in the 20th century, the see of Canterbury has waxed in power and importance as doctrinal and Scriptural unity has waned. So, he suggests, that a strong sense of unity with ++Cantuar is a relatively recent innovation and, therefore, not as inviolable as some suggest.

Here's an excellent summary provide by his concluding two paragraphs:

There is no doubt that the Archbishop of Canterbury is the symbolic head of the Anglican Communion, but to give him primary authority (or even the four Instruments together) distorts what Anglicans have historically believed. Theologian William Witt points out that there are no references to the See of Canterbury in any of the classical works about what it means to be Anglican (including the Prayer Book and Thirty-nine Articles). Instead, he said, they all speak of the same authority: "An affirmation of the primacy, sufficiency, and clarity of Scripture, and affirmation of the historic creeds as summarizing the heart of Scripture, and understanding of the church as expressing a kind of continuity with the primitive Catholic Church, and a critique of late Medieval and Tridentine Roman Catholicism as a deviation from patristic Catholicism."[12] This is the ground of Anglican theology, not some artificially imposed ecclesiastical structure. What would we do if one day the Archbishop of Canterbury were to say that we have outgrown the biblical understanding of marriage, sex and family? Or what if he said that Jesus isn't the only begotten Son of God (Nicene Creed) and that all religions equally lead to God? This Church has always said that Canterbury's word is only as good as he upholds God's Word, and his authority only as strong as he upholds the Anglican heritage. To give our loyalty to an institution, rather than to the doctrine the institution is pledged to obey, is simply misplaced loyalty.[13]

Rowan Williams, as nice and spiritual and smart as he is, can't rescue us from the storm that surrounds us. He could patch things up temporarily by revising his invitation list for Lambeth 2008, and he could publicly side with the Windsor bishops against the revisionist run on the church. But this would do little more than buy more time as we continue to look for political solutions to theological problems. Our real hope is not the Windsor Report or an Anglican Covenant, but what the Prayer Books calls "the substance of the faith," and what the Bible calls "the faith once and for all delivered to the saints."[14] This, and only this, gives us strength and courage in the midst of the storms around us in the Anglican Communion and in the Episcopal Church.

I am challenged by this perspective because whatever its excesses, I do think the Reformation was needed; and that whatever political machinations accompanied it, the English Reformation was a significant movement of the Holy Spirit. The Anglican way was founded in order to recover the Christ of Scripture, as faithfully proclaimed by the apostolic church but corrupted by the Roman church. These convictions were, in turn, enshrined in the 39 Articles and the Book of Common Prayer. They all preach the same Gospel, bear witness to the truth of God in Christ. Thus, Scripture, the 39 Articles, the Prayer book and faithful apostolic witness are the genuine instruments of Anglican unity, with Christ at their center. That is why I am an Anglican, and I will remain in communion with anyone who maintains this very same commitment. These are my convictions. I can hold no other.

Where any one attests to a different Gospel, they cease to function as instrument of unity but of division. Tragically, in Anglicanism today, we have many, many such teachers. It is long past time--but now will do--for those with the spiritual authority to say and do something, to proclaim anew the faith once and for all delivered to the saints and to direct our common life accordingly. Chief among those authorities is the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams.

For good and for ill, his see has come to occupy such a central place in our polity. He can act to help renew Anglicanism. Will he do so? Will his choices post-30 September move the Communion in that direction? Or away from it? I am waiting to see. . .

Islamopalian Watch

2007-09-12T16:53:00.000-05:00

NPR is on the Rev. Ann Holmes Redding story, the Episcopal priest who claims also to be a Muslim. Give the reporter credit: she goes right after the key issue of whether Redding can claim to be a Christian while denying the divinity of Christ. Rev. Canon Kendall Harmon's comments are right on. Sad that so few in Redding's parish really care one way or the other. They find her Muslipalianism a novelty, or even "cool."

Continental v. Analytic Philosophy

2007-09-12T00:02:00.000-05:00

Today, I concluded an overview of the broad sweep of modern and contemporary philosophy for my PHIL 202 class. It ends with the 'continental' vs. 'analytic' divide. I'm not sure I place much value in the distinction anymore. It is clearly blurry (rim shot, please!) and today, probably represents more than anything a difference in academic cultures between continental Europe and the English-speaking world than anything. But at any earlier time I expended a great deal of energy on figuring it out and then, last year, we devoted our senior seminar to it (PHIL 401 & 402). It's not unimportant for the way we do conceive of ourselves, since these monikers--'continental' and 'analytic'--do live on and do pretend to mean something. And I guess that for some people, they really do (if, say, you are a 'continental philosopher' in an 'analytic department,' or vice versa).

With this lame self-justification in mind, I post a piece I wrote for PHIL 401 for your consideration. If they mean something, this is what they mean(t) to me. What do you think?

* * *

Autumnal Meditations
Ad Hoc Theses on PHIL 401
Prof. Stephen D. Lake

1. How to define these two approaches, the so-called ‘continental’ and ‘analytic’ approaches to philosophy, so that we might get a handle on their meaning and relationship? I still have questions about how deeply we have defined these differences. Are these definitions well-grounded, well-articulated?

2. True, there are issues that broadly characterize the two perspectives, mostly issues of philosophical methodology and agenda. To summarize:
a. The analytic prizes conceptual clarity and rigor; is home to the abstract thought experiment, logical puzzles or symbolic logic; is often very present-minded, preferring contemporary formulations or downplaying philosophy’s history. Defining issues include the relationship and epistemology of logic and language. Its scholarly style is best expressed in the technical journal article, replete with symbolic formalizations. Most of its practitioners have hailed, until recently, from the UK and the US. Furthermore, its progenitors openly rejected any theological outlook as irrational (e.g., Russell and logical positivism), so the tradition was slow to grant intellectual credibility to Christian belief.
b. By contrast, the continental still philosophizes within the great tradition of Western metaphysics, cherishing the text and context of philosophy, including the pathos of the great existential questions. Most of its practitioners have, until recently, been from continental Europe, especially from Germany or France. Many of its key figures have strongly resisted any positivist reductionism in the name of clarity or rigor. Another defining issue has been Kantian and post-Kantian idealism (or what analytic philosophers would call, “anti-realism”). Though in so-called postmodern continental philosophy, it may be hostile ‘grand metanarratives’ of all kinds—including religious ones—it has long been more hospitable to worldview thinking and system-building. Its scholarly style is best expressed in the lengthy magnum opus, be it a pedantic, Germanic tome or the rhetorical pyrotechnics of French postmodernists.

3. But to some extent, the difference between so-called ‘Continental’ and ‘analytic’ approaches to philosophy has the feel of Justice Potter Stewart’s definition of ‘pornography’: “I know it when I see it.” There is a sense, still, that the definitions elude precision because their fundamental ground is (perhaps) stylistic and political in nature, defining simply the manner of speaking of two competing scholarly communities within philosophy. Certainly the divide has had stylistic and political dimensions. But is it more than that?

4. The Christian scholarly community has also had its version of the divide. Though we are still in the midst of exploring this aspect of the divide, I think we have seen in Plantinga, on the one side, and Peperzak and Westphal, on the other, fair representations of the general features I describe above. What particularly stands out is: Plantinga’s logicistic fondness for the playful reductio; Peperzak’s careful deference to the grand tradition of philosophy and resistance to reductionism; and Westphal’s apologetic (against Plantinga’s realism) for the epistemological revolution of Kantian and post-Kantian continental philosophy.

Gratuitous Evil

2007-09-11T13:17:00.000-05:00

Is there such a thing?

I am inclined to say "yes," though I would not presume to know if any particular event is, in fact, an instance of GE. In other words, I am inclined to think that even within a strong (i.e., Reformed) view of divine sovereignty, it is theoretically plausible to suppose that some evil happens with no particular good purpose or redemptive end in view. That God might poke through the rubble and ashes and bring about some local goods as a result does not 'sanctify,' as it were, gratuitous evils and provide their raison d'advenir.

I'm reflecting on this question (again) today, since it is 11 September. Events such as those that took place on that Tuesday 6 years ago (on a day startlingly similar to today, in Chicago at least) do not lend themselves--very well--at least to a greater good-type theodicy. Whatever the great good of 9/11 might be, it is invisible to me, and I am inclined to think it just might not exist. Same thing goes with the Holocaust. Or the Rwandan genocide. Or Darfur. Or, or, or.

Senseless evils clutter human history, and I wonder if it does us any good, theoretically, to try to find a sense to them. In fact, I think it well might bring theory into disrepute to try to find the telos to some kind of telos-exploding events.

Some events appears to bend teleology--perhaps nearly to the breaking point--but yet there is some coherent narrative to explain, purposefully, their occurrence. Here I think of supposed instances of "double effect" in Just War thinking, where an unintended consequence of an otherwise justified action produces suffering, sometimes gross suffering. That may bend our teleological thinking without breaking it to suppose that the effort, say, to stop Hitler was justified, even if some innocent civilians--perhaps even Jews--died in a Berlin bombing campaign. But I suppose there are other, better instances of teleology bending, though I'm not coming up with any right off.

By contrast, gratuitous evils would be classic cases of genuinely free actions, whose occurrence God passively allows, even if those events do not play a role in His story. There may be 'room' in His story--in that sense, 'fit' in His story--but they are not a part, if you will, of the narrative flow. His story prevails, no doubt. His story may have to circumvent the events, or may incorporate ameliorative actions to repair damages and heal broken lives. All that will be to His great credit, of course. But the initial event which brought about the damage and brokenness may go uncompensated in the grand scheme of things. In the scales of history, such events may never be outweighed with a comparable greater good. And in that sense, those events are unredeemed, even amidst the flow of redemptive history.

This is what I, as a 'Reformed Molinist,' am leaning towards saying about certain horrendous, dysteleological evils. The Reformed viewpoint endorses divine sovereignty--God indeed knowingly lets such things happen--while the Molinist view sees the range of divinely permitted human freedom as potentially quite large, quite destructive, quite contrary to God's overall plan, even if--ultimately--we can never subvert His plan--entirely.

Is this a coherent point of view? I'm not sure. Yet. Any thoughts?

Aren't you the guy. . .

2007-09-09T21:16:00.000-05:00

. . .who used to sell me pot? No, seriously, didn't you used to deal marijuana?

That was the most memorable question I got last night at my 20th high school reunion.

I assured him that he must be mistaken. "No, you must be thinking of someone else." This guy obviously did not know me in high school. (Frankly, I did not recognize him at all.) Moi?! A pot dealer?! I would have sooner sold him a lush, tropical island in the Caribbean.

Fortunately, a classmate of mine who had known me since second grade was also present. She howled, doubling over with laughter. She proclaimed my innocence: "No, you definitely have the wrong guy! You must have been so high that you can't even remember your dealer."

My Kind of Fantasy Football

2007-09-08T00:44:00.000-05:00

Check out the Onion's FF League:

Welcome To Onion Fantasy Football: Shattered Expectations

Shattered Expectations Fantasy Football, you get a chance to win big by picking the biggest losers of the week every week. If you can pick the biggest bunch of disappointments, let-downs, and general losers-of-the-week from our pre-picked pool of underperforming superstars, you win $500. Predict a perfect train wreck of a season - 17 weeks' worth of overpaid fumbles, over-hyped interceptions, and dismal underproduction, and earn $5000. All it takes is a cool, calculated sense of cynicism, a discerning eye for the overrated, and a willingness to trust that sinking feeling in your gut.

I've played fantasy for the last several years--even won my league year before last--but I'm sitting this year out. I need one less distraction in my life. (Heck, this blog might be next!) But the Onion's pick-em league might just bring me out of retirement.

The Metaphysics of Parenting

2007-09-07T08:08:00.001-05:00

Excellent editorial at Opinion Journal by Tony Woodlief (H/T: SF).

While some mothers and fathers stubbornly cling to the utopian beliefs of their childless years, the vision of humans as inherently sinful and selfish resonates with many of us who are parents. Nobody who's stood between a toddler and the last cookie should still harbor a belief in the inherent virtue of mankind. An afternoon at the playground is apt to make one toss out the idealist Rousseau ("man is a compassionate and sensible being") in favor of the more realistic Hobbes ("all mankind [is in] a perpetual and restless desire for power"). As a father of four sons, I've signed on to Mr. Thomas Sowell's summation of a parent's duty [in A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles]: "Each new generation born is in effect an invasion of civilization by little barbarians, who must be civilized before it is too late." . . .

. . .this notion that humans are inherently angelic, and that it is society that corrupts them, is at the heart of much bad parenting, as well as inept schooling. Rather than help our children develop internal constraints that channel their energy and passion into productive enterprises, we end up teaching them that limits and discipline are for chumps. Ms. Hulbert notes that even Dr. Benjamin Spock, whose advice in his book "Baby and Child Care" was so often blamed for parental permissiveness, had seen enough of the consequences: "I can hardly bear to be around rude children," he wrote. "I have the impulse to spank them, and to give a lecture to their parents."

Some experiences ought to shape our metaphysical commitments more than others. I submit that parenting is as good of a 'refutation' of Rousseau's vision of human nature as any philosophical argument. Our toddler flaunts his selfish gene every chance he gets. But we love him, and if we did not, we would not confront that darker side of his precious self honestly. We would not seek to tame and redirect his wilder urges into something better, higher. We would not, truly, love him.

Jordan on Rowan I

2007-09-06T00:01:00.000-05:00

I'm just starting to read Jordan's Hylden's piece in First Things. The opening's true enough for tonight:

Summer is almost over, which for most of us means putting away the beach umbrella and suntan lotion and getting back to work, however much we dread facing the mountain of paper piled up in our inboxes.

But if you’re one of the many who wishes that the daily grind could be postponed for just a bit longer, it may at least be some small consolation to know that Rowan Williams feels your pain. Although, in his case, it is probably increased by several orders of magnitude—for when he gets back to his drafty old medieval office on the banks of the Thames, he has waiting for him an Anglican Communion that may soon explode into a million tiny pieces. And, what’s worse, it nearly all depends upon him.

More later. . .

3 New AMiA Bishops

2007-09-05T10:36:00.000-05:00

Add three more AMiA bishops to the 4 (active) it currently has and to the 11 bishops (3 of them recently consecrated) to serve orthodox Anglicans outside the purview of the Episcopal Church (TEC). The new total, then, is 14 (Anglican Mainstream puts this in context). Here's the press release from the Province of Rwanda's House of Bishops:

A COMMUNIQUE FROM THE HOUSE OF BISHOPS

OF THE PROVINCE OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF RWANDA

The House of Bishops of the Province of the Episcopal Church of Rwanda (PEER) met in Kigali, Rwanda on the 4th day of September 2007. Acknowledging the significant growth of the missionary outreach initiated by PEER in the USA, the House of Bishops considered nominations for additional missionary Bishops to further the work of the Anglican Mission in the Americas (AMiA). The House of Bishops elected three bishops and appointed them to serve in PEER’s missionary jurisdiction in North America committed to extending God’s kingdom. The bishops-elect are the Rev. Terrell Glenn, the Rev. Philip Jones and the Rev. John Miller. The date for the consecrations has been set for the 26th day of January in the year of our Lord Jesus Christ 2008 following the Anglican Mission’s Winter Conference (January 23 – 26, 2008) in Dallas, Texas.

Provincial Secretary

PROVINCE OF THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF RWANDA

I am not really familiar with these three ministers, but the Rev. Glenn currently serves at All Saints, Pawley's Island, SC, one of the flagship AMiA parishes.

O.J. Confesses...Sort of

2007-09-04T22:13:00.000-05:00

I know it's old news. Everyone's heard that O.J. published a book where he hypothesized how he 'might have' murdered Nicole and Ron, but Timothy Noah's 2-part review of O.J.'s woulda-coulda-maybe shoulda tell-all rant is worthy a read. I've not read the book--who would want to?--but I feel like I have after reading Noah's review. The final paragraph pretty well sums it up

If I Did It is a portrait of an abusive husband who beat and eventually killed his ex-wife, then laid out his narcissism and self-delusion for all to see. I'd prefer a more straightforward confession, but in the meantime, this will certainly do.

Michael Jackson, R.I.P.

2007-09-04T21:00:00.000-05:00

Noted beer critic Michael Jackson, popularizer of my dearly beloved Belgian beers, has passed away:

In 1976 he published a guide to the English pub, and the next year the first edition of his guide to beer. Thereafter he became a full-time evangelist for real ales and small-scale brewing, and produced numerous guides to the beers of the world and to the cuisine which best suited each. Among his titles, The Great Beers of Belgium (originally 1991) went into five editions, while his total sales exceeded three million. He was published in 18 languages, from Estonian to Japanese.

H/T: Ayjay

What's your real age?

2007-09-02T10:38:00.000-05:00

Try this test to find out.

I am 38 years old, but according to the test, I am actually--in terms of real risk factors and my real indices of well-being--39.5 years old, with a life expectancy of 75. Then I retook the test. I found that if I increased my level of exercise (to 3+ times a week to my current 1 or less) and decreased my stress--through exercise, prayer, meditation, etc.--my real age would drop to 28 and I could add 10 years to my life expectancy. Wow. These are things I should be doing anyhow, so why not?

What's your real age?

H/T: T19.

Modern OT Scholarship

2007-08-30T13:46:00.000-05:00

I am persuaded that much of what passes for Old Testament “scholarship” in revisionist circles would have been long ago discarded for the rubbish heap had it not been for the overwhelming desire on the part of modern people to escape hard biblical truths about the nature of God and the nature of Man. I do not, in other words, think that Crossan and Borg are loved on a popular level because their arguments have merit. Rather, the “assured results of modern scholarship” provide an escape from the holiness of God.
--Fr. Matt Kennedy

Bittersweet

2007-08-29T22:46:00.000-05:00

The beginning of the school year is often bittersweet. Some feel a real surge of energy and excitement, others experience fear, foreboding and maybe even ill-will. I suppose I will face both types of students in the classroom tomorrow. Heck, I often feel both at the same time myself--and I'm supposed to be the ever eager professor.

Well, I was reminded of the latter type of person by this Dave Walker cartoon I just stumbled across, and it evokes a certain sympathy in me for the plight. Hang in there. The guy holding the sign up is not real, I assure you. We are struggling to attain a real goal, no matter how illusory it might feel.

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

In Fairness

2007-08-28T13:23:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I posted the stammerings of Caitlin Upton, the Miss South Carolina contestant in the Miss Teen USA pageant. This morning, she spoke on NBC's Today Show about her instant Internet infamy.

. . .first Upton was forced to relive the moment she will likely never forget. She watched the embarrassing video clip for the first time with [hosts Matt] Lauer and [Anne] Curry, and could only shudder and laugh.

“I am sitting here laughing at myself,” she said good-naturedly. “Is that really me? It’s like I’m not in my actual body.”

. . .

The question clearly caught Upton by surprise. She explained Tuesday that she was so overwhelmed by the moment she barely heard any of the question.

“Everything did come at me at once,” she said. “And I made a mistake — everybody makes a mistake — I’m human. Right when the question was asked of me, I was in shock ... I would love to re-answer that question.”

Curry obliged, reading the entire question as it had been asked during the pageant. This time, Upton was ready.

“Personally, my friends and I, we know exactly where the United States is on a map,” she said. “I don’t know anyone else who doesn’t. If the statistics are correct, I believe there should be more emphasis on geography in our education so people will learn how to read maps better.”

She came back later in the show to deliver a flawless explanation of lunar eclipses.

Held up on the Internet as the quintessential dumb blonde, Upton was an honor student in high school who played varsity soccer for four years.

Judge for yourself, here's the whole story.

The Youth are Our Future.

2007-08-27T13:36:00.001-05:00

Hats off to our country's future film and beauty stars. Could this be a better illustration of the issue in question or what?!
H/T: Jerry Madsen.

Behold I stand at the door. . .

2007-08-27T13:18:00.000-05:00

Scary Jesus art, 'courtesy' of Dr. Mabuse:

Question: Would you dare open the door to let Him in?

Kudos to Howard Bryant

2007-08-26T01:24:00.000-05:00

He gets it, re: Vick, Bonds and society writ large:

Muddying the truth is a dangerous but effective way of confusing the public; and these days, it is an art form. Barry Bonds, reportedly, saying he did not "knowingly" take steroids has somehow morphed into "it has never been proven that Bonds used steroids."

Vick's legal team attempted to mitigate his involvement in gambling by including in the plea agreement the statement that he didn't make side bets. Yet in Paragraph 4 found on the third page of the summary of facts, the government states, "Vick agrees that the 'Bad Newz Kennels' business enterprise involved gambling activities in violation of the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia as set forth in the indictment."

And he cites several other such 'muddyings' of the truth in Vick's plea agreement. Among them, he appears to deny killing some dogs. . .only a few pages later, smothered in legalese, to acknowledge his involvement in killing others.

Hats off to Bryant. He's writing this on the ESPN--one of the great confusers of the public, when it comes to the likes of Bonds, Vick, et al. You hear that canard about Bonds uttered daily on the Booyah Network. Fact is, ESPN has helped elevate moral obfuscation of this sort to the level of art. Too bad Bryant can't say that as well without loosing his job.

Emergent Motivators

2007-08-26T00:28:00.000-05:00

Erin directs me to these Emergent Motivators, the counterpoint to the Po-Motivators I was chuckling at last week. Now's not the time for me to elaborate my views of the Emergent church, though I take it as axiomatic that there is much truth, affirming and denying, in laughter. Rather, I simply state that, what I believe the Emergent church to be striving for is indeed the incarnational living depicted here:

Thank you, Erin, for the reminder.

What a weekend

2007-08-25T23:25:00.000-05:00

At ten minutes 'til 8 tonight we regained power after being without electricity for 50 hours.

The initial storm came fast and furious Thursday afternoon and we lost power at 3:15, the time emblazoned on oven clock.

Then came more storms that night. And a brief period of flooding in our basement, the surging waters overwhelming our Ace in the Hole. The ground here has been so saturated in this the soggiest August I can ever recall. When the storms hit, it was no match for our sump pump and Ace in the Hole, let alone the poor backup alone.

But our neighbors were gracious and allowed us to tap into their generator for enough power to pump out the basement (and keep it dry) while saving our frozen and refrigerated goods. We were truly blessed by their generosity. Sad to say that in America, it takes a storm to get neighbors to spend any time with each other at all.

But now, with downed branches piled neatly along the curb, the power is back. We actually celebrated, and I ran out to thank the crew at the corner. (Turns out they were cheeseheads from Wisconsin and could not understand my delight at having the power back in time for the second half of the Bears preseason game. But I digress. . . .).

While we did not really suffer, it did feel as if we'd been gone on a tiring road trip, finally to return home. Electricity is a basic, daily blessing, an amazing thing, when you stop to think about it--which is pretty much never, because it is a staple good in American life. Given what NOLA and the people of Peru have recently been through, it is crazy for me to feel deprived at all, but in America, being without electricity and having to improvise leads you inexorably to feelings of deprivation. In our case, it was probably a bit more rustic than some because we have well-water and need electricity to pump it and maintain house pressure. So we had to visit friends to bathe, and the dishes piled up in the kitchen unwashed. But, really, it seemed impertinent and spoiled to complain as if we suffered at all.

We just had to endure. And, frankly, it was a worthwhile spiritual lesson to be forced to endure a bit of hardship. It is a lesson in learning how to wait and be patient for one of our daily blessings to return.

And return it did. Something the folks in NOLA or Peru cannot necessarily say. Nor many, many other people around the world who have no electricity at all. We are blessed, indeed.

++Akinola Comes to Wheaton

2007-08-25T22:05:00.000-05:00

The Archbishop of Nigeria, the Most Rev. Peter Akinola, will join the Chicago-area network of AMiA parishes for worship on Sunday, 23 September 2007. It will be held at Wheaton College's Edman Chapel. It was just announced (to us) tonight at church.

The joint eucharist is an annual event, but it is quite significant, I think, that the Archbishop will celebrate with us so close to the 30 September deadline for TEC to respond to the Dar es Salaam communiqué. I'm not surprised he is in the U.S. but I am that he's not in New England with his flagship CANA parishes.

Interesting note: Fr. Bill confirmed tonight something I had heard before but I was not sure was true. The 'n' in ++Peter's last name is silent. He is Archbishop Peter Ak-ee-ola. How do we know it's true? Thus spake ++Akinola's best friend (whoever that is), who spoke with Bill+ this week sometime.