UnChristian Ministry

Postman: techno worldview war

2012-02-15T14:15:00.001Z

...new technologies compete with old ones - for time, for attention, for money, for prestige, but mostly for dominance of their world-view. This competition is implicit once we acknowledge that medium contains an ideological bias. And it is a fierce competition, as only ideological competitions can be. It is not merely a matter of tool against tool - the alphabet attacking ideographic writing, the printing press attacking the illuminated manuscript, the photograph attacking the art of painting, television attacking the printed word. When media make war against each other, it is a case of world-views in collision.

Technopoly, p16.

Tripp: meditate on God's goodness

2012-02-13T20:25:00.001Z

You would be surprised how many pastors have confessed to me a lack of good spiritual habits. It is sad to think of how many pastors live in functional isolation, not putting their hearts in places where they can be watched, warned, protected, and nourished. Without daily meditating on God's glory and grace, all you're left to meditate on are the struggles within you and the problems outside you. No wonder our pastoral muscles grow weak.

Paul Tripp
(article on waiting)

Postman: the monastery clock & what was never meant to happen

2012-02-13T16:58:00.003Z

The bells of the monastery were t be rung to signal the canonical hours; the mechanical clock was the technology that could provide precision to these rituals of devotion. And indeed it did. But what the monks did not foresee is that the clock is a means not merely of keeping track of the hours but also of synchronising and controlling the actions of men. And thus by the middle of the 14th century, the clock had moved outside the walls of the monastery, and brought a new ad precise regularity to the life of the workman and the merchant.

"The mechanical clock," as Lewis Mumford wrote, "made possible the idea of regular production, regular working hours and a standardised product." In short, without the clock, capitalism would have been quite impossible. The paradox, the surprise and the wonder are that the clock was invented by men who wanted to devote themselves more rigorously to God; it ended as the technology of greatest use to men who wished to devote themselves to the accumulation of money. In the eternal struggle between God and Mammon, the clock quite unpredictably favoured the latter.

Technopoly, p14-15

Postman: our culture conspiring against itself

2012-02-09T08:09:00.000Z

As for change brought on by technology, this native optimism is exploited by entrepreneurs, who work hard to infuse the population with a unity of improbable hope, for they know it is economically unwise to reveal the price to be paid for technological change. One might say, then, that, if there is a conspiracy of any kind, it is that of a culture conspiring against itself.

Technopoly p12

Simeon: preaching to lower numbers

2012-02-08T20:24:00.000Z

For 12 years the people refused to let [Charles Simeon] give the afternoonSunday sermon. And during that time they boycotted the Sundaymorning service and locked their pews so that no one could sit inthem.He preached to people in the aisles for 12 years! How did helast?

In this state of things I saw no remedy but faith and patience. The passage of Scripture which subdued and controlled my mind was this, "The servant of the Lord must not strive." It was painful indeed to see the church, with the exception of the aisles, almost forsaken; but I thought that if God would only give a double blessing to the congregation that did attend, there would on the whole be as much good done as if the congregation were doubled and the blessing limited to only half the amount. This comforted me many, many times, when without such a reflection, I should have sunk under my burthen. (Charles Simeon, by H.C.G. Moule, p. 39)

From DG

Universal Solvent

2012-02-07T13:58:00.000Z

But skepticism is a universal solvent, and once applied, it does not stop just because Christendom is gone. "I think, therefore I am. I think." We pulled out the stopper of faith, and the bathwater of reason appeared undisturbed for a time. But modernism slowly receded and now postmodernism is circling the drain. Our intelligentsia needs to figure out how to do more than sit in an empty tub and reminisce about the days when Voltaire knew how to keep the water hot.

Doug Wilson

Quick Review: The Fellowship of the Ring

2012-02-07T10:55:00.003Z

OK, so 25 years after I first read it, I returned to the TLOR. Why such a long time, when many people I know have read it again and again? Well two reasons:

1. I tend to remember the details of most good stories I read for a long time. And as one of the most compelling things about reading for me is not knowing what happens next, I hesitate to re-read a book until a degree of fading has occurred. This waiting has been complicated by since hearing the BBC Radio version, watching the old British movie of the first half of TLOR, playing War in Middle Earth in the early 90s, and then watching the Peter Jackson trilogy, followed by watching the extended editions. But although I have waited long, it would appear that the original book made such an impact I still remember most of it.

2. It's this impact that made me pause: TLOR really was one of those pivotal moments, and reading it affected me deeply. It was and is the best story I ever read, and so I was hesitant to return to it in case it didn't live up to the pedestalled memory; like returning to a childhood place which seemed huge park when we were small, only to discover it was just a normal sized garden.

So?

Well no, it hasn't lived up to the original impact. But I don't believe this is because the book is not as good as I thought, but is more a statement of my psychology. By which I mean:
a) I remember too much, so there is little of the suspense, the desperate need to see what happens next because, sadly, I already know.
b) Part of the power of 25 years ago was the change it wrought in me, and that work is done. So I will not feel the impact of having my imagination stretched this time - because it is still stretched all these years later. For example, one effect on me (and on many others) was to change the way I viewed landscape: something about Tolkien's dealing with landscape in the book meant that everywhere I went, when I saw a distant view of hills, or Dartmoor, or mountains, it had been affected or infected. But that's happened, It can't re-happen. Or, as another example, several scenes in the book in my memory are huge, long, epic. Moria was like this: I can remember now being spellbound. Or the adventure with the Barrow-Wight. It's only a couple of pages!! What? Surely that's huge? No - but at the time this was all new, my brain was processing entirely new ideas - and so it seemed many pages long (cf. Andrew Adamson's comments on filming the massive battle at the end of LW&W, which turned out in adulthood to be only 2 pages long!)
c) It has revealed how I have changed. 25 years ago, the first chapters seemed to be holding up the story: "where's the adventure?! 13 years? O come on.....". This time my feelings were "No! Stay in Hobbiton! Let some other mug do it!". Something has changed in me...probably I have found out that crisis and pain are not as much fun as one thinks, even if you call them a "quest".

But there are other changes too. Things which seemed unimportant or irritating then, I find fascinating now. Chief among these is Tom Bombadil: I was glad to see the back of him 25 years ago, but this time...fascinated! Who is he? What is Tolkien saying? And please can I go stay at his house? And the relationships between characters are far more significant this time round. And the way different races interact...

And I ought to say that though I have had little time to read since starting at the beginning of the year, the time spent reading has flown by and suddenly I am at the Falls of Rauros. It's still a great book.

25 years ago I found The Two Towers the least satisfying of the three...but this time, maybe something unexpected will happen.

Jardine: writing email like letters

2012-02-07T10:34:00.006Z

It is this second version of the letter that was eventually dispatched, and which evidently satisfied its recipient, who called a truce on their differing views of Fry's influence and reputation. In early September, Woolf wrote to arrange for Nicolson to visit, adding: "I love getting your letters," and "I'm so happy you found the life of Roger Fry interesting as well as infuriating."

Two things strike me in this exchange. The first is the simple good manners both correspondents evidence in the way they address one another and present their arguments, in spite of the real, keenly felt differences of opinion.

Virginia Woolf understood the effects of letters written in haste.

The second is the strikingly different outcome arrived at because Virginia Woolf restrained herself from dispatching her first, intemperate draft reply and carefully modified it so as not to hurt the feelings of the young man - a family friend, very much younger and less experienced than herself.

I have, of course, dwelt on this exchange for a purpose. In it, Woolf - using established letter-writing conventions - takes advantage of the time lapses between exchanges to recuperate, clarify, recast and take control of the argument. The result has the elegance of a formal dance - a kind of minuet, in which the participants advance and retreat according to well-understood rules, until they have arrived at a satisfactory outcome.

How unlike the rapid firing off and counter-fire of email messages in which many of us find ourselves engaged nowadays as our predominant means of communicating with colleagues and friends, and even with complete strangers...

Lisa Jardine, BBC

Postman: winners and losers in technology

2012-02-01T16:01:00.001Z

...the benefits and deficits of a new technology are not distributed equally. There are, as it were, winners and losers. It is both puzzling and poignant that on many occasions the losers, out of ignorance, have actually cheered the winners and some still do...

It is to be expected that the winners will encourage the loses to be enthusiastic about computer technology. That is the way of winners, and so they sometimes tell the losers that with personal computers the average person can balance a chequebook more neatly, keep better track of recipes, and make more logical shopping lists. They also tell them that their lives will be conducted more efficiently. But discreetly they neglect to say from whose point of view the efficiency is warranted, or what might be its costs. Should the losers grow sceptical, the winners dazzle them with the wondrous feats of computers, all of which have only marginal relevance to the quality of the losers' lives but which are nonetheless impressive.

Technopoly p9&11

Postman: technology changes word meanings

2012-01-30T14:58:00.003Z

...he [Thamus] worries that wisdom will become indistinguishable from mere knowledge. This judgment we must take to heart, for it is a certainty that radical technologies create new definitions of old terms and that this process takes place without our being fully conscious of it...

...technology imperiously commandeers our most important terminology. It redefines "freedom", "truth", "intelligence", "fact", "wisdom", "memory", "history" - all the words we live by. And it does not pause to tell us. And we do not pause to ask.

Technopoly, p8-9

Montgomery: don't be a Bugle

2012-01-30T13:30:00.002Z

It's only that Cousin Ernestine Bugle is catching.

I know now why Rebecca Due has always called her 'Miss Much Afraid'. The poor soul has borrowed so much trouble she must be hopelessly in debt to fate.

There are so many Bugles in the world, not many quite so far gone in Buglism as Cousin Ernestine perhaps; but so many kill-joys, afraid to enjoy today because of what tomorrow will bring.

Anne of Windy Willows, p209-10

Vocation and unemployment

2012-01-25T16:24:00.003Z

In recent years, Christian scholars have reflected in fresh ways on a theology of work. It can be devastating when people are unable to engage in meaningful labor. "It's perfectly natural to be ill at ease about becoming unemployed and to be frustrated and anxious," Ben Witherington, author of Work: A Kingdom Perspective on Labor, told Christianity Today. "I don't think that most Christians have thought seriously about what the Bible says about work."

When the vision of work is not rooted in Scripture, people fall back on a lesser notion: the perfect job. "Christians have associated vocation with job," said Gene Veith, author of the 2002 book God at Work, noting that job is a secular word, while the word vocation has rich theological meaning.

Vocation is defined as God calling us to serve and love our neighbors. This is something one never loses, Veith said. According to the Reformers, Veith said, there were three vocations: the family, the church, and the state. A paying job is only one aspect of the family vocation.

"We invest so much of the meaning of our lives in our jobs," said Veith, provost and professor at Patrick Henry College. "That's our identity, that's what gives our life reason, that's why we get up in the morning. When that is taken away, we feel purposeless. That mindset has led us to neglect our other vocations and callings."

Dalrymple: cover nihilism with malevolence

2012-01-06T17:02:00.001Z

It is better [in the minds of those he is describing] to be opposed by an enemy than to be adrift in meaninglessness, for the simulacrum of an enemy lends purpose to actions whose nihilism would otherwise be self evident.

Our Culture... p303

Dalrymple: The West case - loss of family is loss of protection

2012-01-06T12:07:00.001Z

The [Fred and Rosemary] West case revealed how easily, in the anonymity of the modern urban environment, and in the midst of crowds, people may disappear; and how such disappearances are made all the easier by a collective refusal - in the name of individual liberty - of parents to take responsibility for their children, of neighbours to notice what is happening around them, of anyone to brave the mockery of libertines in the defence of some standard of decency. And the various public agencies - the police, the schools, the social services, the hospitals - proved no substitute for the personal contact that families were once supposed to have provided, but that, in a permissive climate in which tolerance all too often shades into indifference, many provide no longer. The failure of these agencies was not accidental, but inherent in their nature as bureaucracies: the state is not, and never will be, a substitute for an old-fashioned mum and dad.

Our Culutre... p271

The problem with advice (Tolkien)

2012-01-06T11:56:00.001Z

"...But it is said: Do not meddle in the affairs of Wizards, for they are subtle and quick to anger. The choice is yoirs: to go or wait."

"And it is also said," answered Frodo, "Go not to the Elves for counsel, for they will say both no and yes."

"Is it indeed?" laughed Gildor. "Elves seldom give unguarded advice, for advice is a dangerous gift, even from the wise to the wise, and all courses may run ill..."

TLOR, p97

Dalrymple: producing shallow people

2012-01-04T17:01:00.002Z

...a loss of sense of shame means a loss of privacy; a loss of privacy means a loss of intimacy; a loss of intimacy means a loss of depth. There is, in fact, no better way to produce shallow and superficial people than to let them live their lives entirely in the open without concealment of anything.

Our Culture... p.240

Ortberg: Hope Management

2012-01-04T16:57:00.003Z

A very wise person suggested a great image to our staff recently. I asked him what he thought is the primary barrier people in church ministry face to finding spiritual health. I thought he would speak about how hard church leadership is, but he immediately said that our challenge is no different than anyone else's: "Learning to depend fully on God for every moment of your life, right where you are."

The image was this: Remember Atlas, that old character from Greek mythology who carried the world on his shoulder? Put it down. Refuse to carry the weight of the world anymore. Rely on God's love this moment for your identity and well-being, so that they no longer hinge on outcomes.

I am a recovering Atlas.

When I remember to do this, when I take the world off my shoulders, it always results in life and hope. Hope, after all, is very different from getting myself to believe that things will turn out the way that I want them to. Hope means, among other things, a joyful dying to my need to have my life turn out any particular way at all. Hope comes when I live in the reality that the world is in better, larger, more capable hands than mine.
The ancient Greeks loved virtue, and believed deeply that suffering would produce character. But in the ancient world, only a Paul would top this list (suffering, perseverance, character) with "hope." The Greeks were not big on hope; they did not believe the universe was kindly disposed to humanity. Paul did, because Jesus did. So Paul said hope "does not disappoint."

Hope-management may be the single most important thing you do today. No circumstance or person is allowed to siphon it from you. When you took this job, when you answered this call—you signed on for hope. It's much bigger than you are. Rest in it a little while.

Leadership

I may have a problem with mathoms (Tolkien)

2011-12-30T21:26:00.000Z

...the museum at Michel Delving. The Mathom-house it was called: for anything that Hobbits had no immediate use for, but were unwilling to throw away, they called a mathom. Their dwellings were rather apt to become rather crowded with mathoms...

The Lord of the Rings, p18

Jacobs: read for fun

2011-12-30T21:20:00.000Z

I say, "Go and read for fun," because that sense of reading as a duty is not going to carry you through. It's not going to sustain you as a vibrant reader, as you will be if you read what gives you delight. You may have actually lost some of that sense of delight over the years reading primarily for school. So go out there and have fun with it.
What will happen when people do that? Will they read frivolous things? Yes—at least I certainly hope so. I quote W. H. Auden, who says that the great masterpieces should be reserved for the "high holidays of the spirit." You're not designed for a steady diet of literary masterpieces any more than you would eat a seven-course French meal every day. At one point, Auden says it's not only permissible but admirable not always to be in the mood for Dante. And I think that's right. Sometimes you just want a lighter fare.

Carson: preaching gospel Christology

2011-12-28T09:23:00.000Z

Preaching from the Gospels is above all an exercise in the exposition and application of Christology.

Don Carson, The Gospel According to John (Pillar), p.102

Part 6 (the end)

2011-12-24T22:16:00.003Z

Slowly he realised he was back in bed with the covers over his head. He pushed them back. Earlysunshine was in the room and the sound of penguins passing the window, singingtheir breakfast song, filled the air. Nick sat up and swung his legsround for the umpteenth time in the last few hours.

Remember, remember...you must remember. Remember what you are for...Something was happening in his head, in some dark recess, in a locked atticdeep in his mind someone or something had awoken and was banging on the door toget out.

For a second he stared into space, and then he was up and over to the window. He called to a penguinwho was loitering a short distance away singing his annoying song withaccompanying choreography.

“Oi, you!” The penguin continued dancing about. Nick collected some of the snow off his windowsill, formed a compacted, icy snowball and took aim. It detonatedwith such force that the penguin flew head first in the drifts.

“Gosh,” said Nick, in a moment of revelation, “I’vewanted to do that for years.” Thepenguin picked itself up and looked about. “Oi, you, penguin! Whatday is this?”

“Eh?”

“What day’s today?”

“Why, it’s Christmas Eve,” it squeaked. Thepenguin was experiencing a strange emotion: Nick had for centuries worn apermanently light-hearted and jolly expression. And could generally beexpected to be able to identify Christmas Eve. He was unsure how to respond to the amnesia and the alien look of...determination?

“It’s Christmas Eve! I haven’t missed it! Right, get round to the stables and tell Rudolph to fire up the Team.”

“But it’s not night-time! What aboutnight-time? You’ll be seen, people will want to talk to you! What aboutthe presents?” The squeaks were filled with alarm.

“Load up the presents now. And we’re going thismorning while it’s light. And get me the P.R. Elf. Change ofPolicy. We’re going public. It’stime to talk.”

“To who?”

“Everyone.”

Quick Review: 1001 Books to Read Before you Die

2011-12-24T08:48:00.001Z

I bought this one second hand earlier this year and read it progressively up to yesterday. It's a great idea, especially for someone who will not live long enough to read all these books: stretching from 1000+years ago to 2006 (there are multiple editions of this volume I think), listing the must-reads, with a brief summary and lots of illustrations.

Having said that, it could also be called "1001 Books to Make you Miserable." The small flaw in the book is that the reviews seem to be written by literary critics, 90% of whom are allergic to happiness and, in some cases, to an actual story. I don't want to overdo this, because it has been a fascinating read. But I get the impression that for many of these critics there is a set of criteria that a book should contain in order to be worthy.

You get a hint of this when they are covering books up to 1900: every so often you realise they are waiting for Ulysses and 20th century literature to start, and much of what went before is just hanging around til it happens. Older books are more likely to be approved if they contain elements that come to fruition in the last 100years. Key words are: psychologising, sexual, bourgeoisie, conflict. Psycho-sexual bourgeoisie conflict is a definite winner.

Reaching Hardy, James and eventually Joyce, one feels we have obtained the promised land. From thence on it would appear that the main purpose of literature is to challenge taboos and overturn the conventions of the linear narrative (ie frequent swearing, sexual content and violence + can't tell a story in a straight line = not many happy endings.)

Another double-edged sword is this volume's evolution from previous editions so as to include more non-Western books. This opens up the horizons and made me realise just how many nations are publishing works which we generally never hear of. The slight downside is that because they have been chosen by similar critics they are frequently taboo-breaking, non-linear blah-de-blah. So one is provided with a global picture but left with the impression that basically everyone in every culture is, ironically, part of a mono-cultural approach to literature.

That's probably too bleak an appraisal, but needs to be borne in mind. The great value of the book is the way it gives brief outlines of many books which one would not necessarily ever have considered or even heard of. My Amazon list has definitely grown.

Part 5

2011-12-24T08:07:00.002Z

Hewas up and sat on the edge of his bed in a moment. All he could hear wasthe sound of his own blood pumping at speed. Nothing else stirred in thedarkness.

This time he did not try to sleep. He stood andlooked out of the window at the starlight reflecting on the ice, feeling verytired and disturbed. The people inthe woods were bad enough, but this last dream had involved images of himself,like broken fragments, shards reflecting something... It made himfeel uncomfortable, but he was not sure why. “This is Christmas,” he saidto himself and the Citadel around him, “this is how Christmas looks. What’sthe matter with it? Nothing, that’s what. That’s how Christmas is.That’s how Christmas has always been.” He wiped his brow. “Isn’tit?”

The clock began to strike twelve. Nick stoppedbreathing and waited....nine...ten...eleven...twelve. The echoes fadedleaving only a suggestion of disturbance in the air, and then that too wasgone. He was about to say “Well, come on let’s get it over with,” whenthe floor vanished.

“Welllaaaaaaragghgggghhhhh!” hesaid instead, falling at considerable speed. There was no light to illuminatehis context, and only the rushing of air to let him know he was falling whilstpointing the right way up.

Thump! He hit the floor, tumbled and landed insomething which was dry and crumbling beneath his face and hands. He didnot feel hurt, but that didn’t seem an especially convincing reason to look upand face whatever awfulness lay before him. So he didn’t and just laythere, taking in data with ears and nose: trees again, and these must be dryneedles or small leaves, and a very slight breeze rustling in the boughs ofsomething. Oh goody, another wood.

“Maybe I can just sleep here. Maybe it will go away.” Deep inside heknew this was a futile hope, not least because he was already, technicallyspeaking, asleep. There was a stirring nearby,not the wind but a something. He looked up. Okay, thisone had obviously read the book.

It was night, but the moon shone brightly enough tolightly silver the dark hood and cloak of the tall figure. Nick scrambledto his feet, no easy task when one has the proportions of a space-hopper. He brushed from his beard and hair the deadleaves of the large yew trees which formed a circle around them. “Right,”thought Nick, “night-time, Yew trees in a circle, cloaked figure. Feeling bad, feeling bad...try speaking.”

He cleared his throat. “Christmas future?”

The figure remained silent, and although his face –was there a face in there? – was obscured by shadow, it felt as though he was staring at Nick. Nick carried on regardless: “You willshow me shadows of things which have not yet happened, but will happen in thetime to come, is that not so, Spirit?”

It said nothing, but slowly raised its shrouded arm. Nick’s eyes widened at this gesture, and tooka step back from what he feared would be a skeletal hand. Then noticed atthe end of the sleeve was an ordinary hand. It was holding a torch, anelectric torch.

“You’ll need this!” said a voice from within the hood,which the Guide swiftly pulled down. “It’s dark!” he said cheerfully, by way ofexplanation, “Parky, isn’t it?”

Nick remained frozen, mouth open, waitingfor normal transmission in his brain to resume. Wasn’t this the bit withopen graves and silent terror? The Guide raised his eyebrows and thenshook the torch in Nick’s direction in an encouraging manner. Nick took it and closed his mouth.

“Long night for you!” said the Guide. Was he aCockney? “Mind you I would havethought you’d be used to that, tearing off ‘round the world in one night. ‘Ere, how come your reindeer don’t catch fire?”

Nick was staring at the torch as if he hadn’t seenone before and then stared at the man instead. The head protruding fromthe dramatic cloak was, in its own way, also dramatic – plentiful black hair anda sharp black beard, with deep, olive skin and angular features. The Guide continued, with the chatter of oneof life’s individuals who cannot bear a vacuum:

“You’re thinking ‘how can an imposing figure like him talk like that?” aren’t you?

And why he doesn’t comb his hair, thought Nick.

“ ‘And why doesn’t he comb his hair?’ Well the thingis, I don’t normally look or sound like this. Technically speaking, I don’t looklike anything. I just thought I’d try it out for the night. It’sbeen a while, you know. So I thought: powerful Dickensian exterior, butunderneath Merlin-esque imposing looks, with a hint of John the Baptist, plusbarrow-boy nuances. I don’t get to do this kind of thing often thesedays, so you gotta grab it while its going. Four for the price of one.”

Nick was not sure whether to feel terrified or justslightly short-changed. “Where am I?”

“Graveyard.”

He settled for terrified.

“Right, me old ducka,” continued the Guide.

“Mucca.”

“Mucca, that’s what I said. This way.” Hemarched off between two of the yews. Nick trailed behind. On the other side of the treeswas, perhaps unsurprisingly, a lot more darkness. Clouds had driftedacross the moon and all he could see was the vague outlines of shapes, angularshapes. Gravestones. He felt depressed. Jiggling was now off the menu. They walked for a fewminutes and then the Guide stopped and said, “This’ll do!”

“For what?” Nick’s mouth was dry and he wasdesperately wishing he was somewhere else. He did not deserve this. He knew he didn’t. He had brought immense pleasure to billions. His life was about giving, not taking, about lights and smiles and music. How could this be happening?

“Turn your torch on then.”

The torch became the weight of granite and the switchtouch of poison. He didn’t want to switch it on. “If I turn it on, where shouldI point it?”

“Errr....over here, this one will do.”

Nick turned to the darker blackness of the headstoneand pointed the torch. He did not want to see or feel what was inscribedthere. As slow as death, he moved the switch and the light flicked on. He stared in horror at the words before him. The words took a momentto sink in, and then: “Never heard ofhim.”

“No?” the Guide peered at the name on the grave, “Ohwell. Try this one.”

Nick swung the beam onto another stone. “Nor him.”

“You’re not very good at this are you, me old miner?”

“China.”

“China.”

“Are you sure you’ve done this before?”

“Course I have! I’m what you might call aProfessional Messenger.” He drifted off in the dark a little, “Here’s a likely lookingone, I mean look at the size of it!”

Nick followed and played the torch over theimpressive tomb. It was four times the size of the other stones, toweringabove the two men, with ornate carving down either side, and the words were notcarved but inlaid with what looked to Nick like titanium. He swallowedhard and started to read.

“The whole earth mourns the loss of one we cannever replace,” tears started to form in Nick’s eyes, “the strength and securityhe brought through generations was matched only by his endless generosity –oh that’s nice,” sobbed Nick, “very nice – and we rest our hearts in theknowledge that his sons – my sons! They take over? It’s what Iwanted! – will continue the great work and tradition. To hisdetractors – ha! All those whiners about the T-MOC - we say: youcan’t prove anything! He was nowhere near the betting shop the night BigJimmy went down...” Nick’s mental equipment was under a lot ofstrain, and the air was starting to feel very close and stuffy, but one thingwas clear:

“ This isn’t my grave.”

“I never said it was.”

“Well which one is mine?”

“None of them. You have a timeless existence,you won’t die. Not in the normal sense anyway.”

“Then why am I here?! All this forbodingnessand darkness and graves. What’s it all about? If my grave isn’there, whose graves are they?”

“Everyone else’s.”

“Everyone else? Which particular everyone else? Likewho?”

“Like...everyone else’s.”

Nick paused as a number of interpretations suggestedthemselves. A particularly dark one was jumping up and down at the backof the queue, but he tried to ignore it.

“Yes, but when you say everyone, specificallywho are we talking about.”

The Guide fixed his dark eyes on Nick’s. “We’retalking about Everyone. This is Christmas Future. This isthe Last Christmas.”

The air, which had been feeling uncomfortable and oddfor a while, suddenly convulsed and a shattering concussion of lightning andthunder hurt Nick’s ears and eyes. But the shock of sound was nothingcompared to the shock of sight. The percussive flash illuminated ranks ofgravestones around him in every direction, for as far as he could see. Inthe next flash he looked beyond to the walls of the cemetery: there were nowalls, what he had taken for the boundary was yet more lines of gravesproceeding far beyond the point where any sensible cemetery would have stopped. Again the sky arced with electricity, and illuminated the retreatinghills that climbed to the distant horizon. The furthest hill, miles away,was not smoothed in outline by the distance, but serrated with a thousand tiny,angular, full-stops. Nick knew inhis heart that every tiny point was a grave, and that every hill would be thesame. The cemetery was gargantuan; it felt like it was the world. Thelightning ceased, the sound rumbled away and silence returned, a silence Nicknow realised that had, until the storm, remained completely unbroken byanything except for himself, the Guide and the wind.

“Everyone?” asked Nick, weakly.

“Everyone.”

“But why bring me here, why show me myself alone inthe world? Did I cause this somehow?”

“No. This is death at work, this is the curseof the Fall. I remember it well.”

Something stirred in Nick’s memory, something fromthe story, the question to the third ghost. “But is this what certainlywill be, or only what might be?”

“Err....both.” Nick’s slightly reviving hopewent limp again. What did that mean?

“So why bring me here? What can I do about it?I can’t stop people from dying, I’m Father Christmas – I deliver toy trains andjiggle my belly.”

“But you are powerful. And you are fast. And everyonelistens for you. And you won’t die. And, if you don’t mind me saying, you seemto have remembered the what and have forgotten the why.”

“But that won’t make people live forever! Thatcan’t overturn death. I can’t bring eternity to a finite universe. I’m not eternal – I may not die but I had a start, abeginning...sometime...it’s hazy now. But I do know that I’m limited. Ican’t open up a hole into forever and let it flow into the world. Who cando that?”

“If there’s one thing tonight should do, it’shighlight your memory issues.”

“If someone could do that,” Nick carried onregardless, becoming more agitated, “then they would have done it long ago.”

“Someone can, and someone did. Think, Nick! Think!”

There was light from above again, but not from astorm this time. The sky was clearing, and as the stars appeared oncemore over the silent world, one star shone more brightly, so brightly that theedges of the graves shone, and he could see the Guide’s features once more. Hiseyes reflected the light of the great star, at which he gazed with beautifulsmile. “Well, I haven’t seen you in a long time...”

Nick gazed at it too. “There’s something aboutit, something long ago...”

“Come on Nick! Strike a light and push yourgranny down the stairs, mush!”

“What?!”

“Nick, what are you for?”

“What am I for?” The star was bothering him.Its light seemed to be inside his eyes, though he was looking at the Guide. “I...don’t remember...what I’m for...”

“Oh Nick, look, think.”

Nick turned back to look at the star, and in thatmoment there was a great rustle by his side, and when he looked back to theGuide the cloak was just completing its empty journey to the ground. In his confusion Nick was aware only of a movement, of a great winggently brushing his face as it moved upwards. Nick span, but saw nothing, andthen looking upwards there was for a moment a lesser light in the sky,approaching the bright star. It entered the halo of light around the greaterbrightness, and was gone. And then thestar was gone too. All was darkness.

Dalrymple: thoughts on sexual morality

2011-12-23T09:10:00.001Z

...this is the first time in history there has been mass denial that sexual relations are a proper subject of moral reflection or need to be governed by moral restrictions...

...how many time I have heard from my patients of their aching desire to settle down and live in a normal family, and yet have no idea whatever how to achieve this goal that was once within reach of almost everyone!

...Thanks to the sexual revolution, current confusions are manifold. In a society that forms sexual liaisons with scarcely a thought, a passing suggestive remark can result in a lawsuit; the use of explicit sexual language is de riguer in literary circles, but medical journals fear to print the word "prostitute" and use the delicate euphemism "sex worker" instead...anxiety about the sexual abuse of children subsists with an utter indifference to the age of consent; compulsory sex education and free contraception have proved not incompatible with the termination of a third of all pregnancies in Britain and with unprecedented numbers of teenage pregnancies...Sexual liberty has led to an increase, not a diminution, in violence between the sexes, both by men and by women: for people rarely grant the object of their affection the freedom they claim and practise for themselves, with a consequent rise in mistrust and jealousy...The only permissible judgment in polite society is that no judgment is permissible.

Our Culture... p236-240

Part 4

2011-12-23T08:55:00.001Z

Itwas his room and it now had a ceiling across which reflections chased. Helay back down, watching his huge belly push the blankets up and down witheach breath. Gradually hisbreathing slowed, which is more than could be said for his tumbling thoughts. The time before. That was something he had not thoughtmuch about in an age. In fact he did not think about it at all, not onpurpose. Sometimes it was there, at the edge of his mind, but he pushedit away before it could take hold and interfere with memories and uncomfortablequestions. After all, what did it have to do with the way things are now?

As he thought this, he felt its presence far too close, like a howling darkvacuum beyond the edge of his life, from which he had been moving away for aslong as he could remember. He was vaguely aware that somehow, sometime, hehad mentally reset the Beginning to much later than it really had been. Buthe’d had to, hadn’t he? And thingsworked so well now: why go back and start fiddling with things? As he pushed the disturbance away, he was gratified to see the mound before him risingand falling more gently, more slowly, as his vital signs returned to normal. Just in time for the clock to start striking twelve again...

His eyes snapped to the ceiling but the ceilingstayed exactly where it was. He waited. On the periphery of hishearing there was a sound: voices, distant, tinny, jumbling together, and lotsof them. Like a crowd of people stuck in a huge bucket at the bottom of awell. But getting louder, nearer. He sat up and looked around. The sound seemed to be coming from the walk-in cupboard opposite the endof his bed, which had so recently been a forest floor. At this moment it was reassuringly a verticalcupboard.

He heaved himself out of bed again, took his coat from where ithad replaced itself on the bedpost (no blood stains), in case there was moresnow involved, and walked to the doors. For a moment he leaned close andlistened to the sounds from within; definitely voices, lots of people, echoinground. Grasping the handles, he took a deep breath and swung the doorsopen. Trees again. In the cupboard. And smoke, emerging inpuffs from somewhere towards the back. He touched the trees.

“ Plastic? Plastic...Christmas trees, in my cupboard?” heasked himself.

“This way!” A man’s voice, definitely Britishof some sort this time. It camefrom further in, roughly from where more puffs of smoke were emerging. There was only one way to get this over with, so Nick pushed through thescratchy trees, following the ascending clouds which, as he walked throughtheir remains, he recognised aspipe-smoke. There was light ahead and then he finally stepped out fromthe fringe of the ‘woods’.

It was a shopping centre, a big one. The floorwas polished honey-coloured stone tile, the ceiling arched above them to aglass roof dimly showing the onset of a dusky winter’s evening. Some wayahead was a balcony overlooking the floors below, and receding into the distancedown either side of this floor were the flattened conformity of commercialunits. A large number of people wandered through the brightly lit hall,entering and leaving shops, brushing past vast and gaudy decorations, savouringthe tinny music and responding with the tinny echoes of their myriad voices. Over the sound-system, tinny Greg Lake sang that he believed in FatherChristmas, with tinny cynicism.

“The present, I assume,” said Nick, having taken allthis in.

“Oh yes”, said the voice, “welcome to Christmaspresent.” The tone of his voice suggested “and you can keep it,” with ahint of satisfaction, as though the mere sight of the Mall was the final pointin a conclusive argument.

Nick turned back to see who his Guide was. Standing against the rows of Christmas trees ranged before “DiscountChristmas”, was someone who did not look much like he should be in ChristmasPresent at all. More like Christmas-Austerity-After-the-War. He wasdressed in a well-worn tweed jacket and unremarkable, formal trousers that hadseen better days, with what looked like stout walking boots of the old kind,protruding from the bottoms. A chunky tie bound the broad wings ofhis shirt collar. All of this combined with his thinning hair and ruddycheeks, made him look like a farmer out for a Sunday walk, and he certainlyseemed out of place here. He replaced the pipe for a moment and smokeswirled about his face, his twinkling, lively eyes shining through. Nickcontinued nervously,

“Right. No sheep...or anything?”

“No, no, no. No, Christmas here is nice andclean. Clad in synthetic marble, treated with antiseptic, climatecontrolled, lights beautifully sequenced. No. You would never findblood or lambs here.”

“You sound disappointed. I can tell you it’s no badthing after what I just saw.”

“No...”, said the Guide, the word laden with meaning though Nick was notsure of what.

They wandered towards the balcony, people weavingaround them, even though they had no idea there were two extra figures crossingthe walkway.

“Yes, no bad thing,” the Guide continued, “but do youever think, especially with your many years of observing humanity, that peopletend to swing the pendulum from one extreme to another? Never seem tosettle somewhere in the middle.”

“The pendulum can swing as far as it likes fromkilling cute farm animals in a wood, as far as I’m concerned.”

“A fair point. But is this real? Doesn’tit feel like a dose of ether? Like one big anaesthetic? To keep youfrom feeling...something?”

“Yes. The wrong end of a big pointy knifesomewhere painful.”

They reached the balcony and leaned on the rail, the Guidereplacing the pipe and puffing thoughtfully. Presumably smoking was bannedin here, but who would know?

“And all that running about,” continued Nick, “trying to find somethingto keep back the darkness – that’s all gone.”

They watched the chaotic rush below: themulticoloured frenzy of hundreds, possibly thousands, of people heaving through the walkways; peopleclutching lists, tensely ticking off successes and underlining lamentedfailures; the hollow looks of disappointment because the last available one wassold an hour ago; the joyous pride and warmth of heart registering on the facesof those making their way to the car-park, arms overflowing with victory; theoccasional elderly person, sat on one of the few, begrudgingly providedbenches, watching sadly, alone, only here because it was warm and not theirempty home where they knew, eventually, they must return. Every one ofthe thronging mass desperate for that one bright thing to carry out into thedarkness of the winter night.

“Maybe,” said the Guide and continued to puff,illegally.

“Oh look!” Nick’s heart warmed instantly. “It’s me! I love it when they do that.”

The balcony formed a large oval, and framed the scenebelow where the Mall owners had sacrificed some shop-space to erect a largeChristmas scene. Plastic snow banks led up to Santa’s igloo. A largemechanical Polar Bear, swung its head back and forth, and here and there apenguin wearing a woolly hat moved its beak so as to sing a tinny rendition of“Winter Wonderland”.

“Gosh,” said the Guide bleakly, “singing penguins.”

“Yes...it can get annoying after a few years of thatoutside your window. At least you can switch these off. But look,you can’t beat that!”

The top of the igloo was missing so that watchersfrom above could see what the gaggles of queuing children could not: Santa, in his igloo-grotto, sat upon his throne, smiling benignly at thechildon-a-stool-not-on-Santa’s-knee-because-this-Complex-has-a-child-protection-policy.

“You can’t get much better than that!” sighed Nick.

“It doesn’t bother you that he’s pretending to beyou?”

“No! Goodness no!” and he gave a little jiggleto show how jolly he felt about it. “No, I’m only available one night a yearwhile the kids are all unconscious. This is a way for them to experiencejust a little of the uniqueness of the T-MOC.”

“Ah. And what would that be precisely?”

“Well, they meet their favourite person in the world,and receive a wonderful gift, and go away with joy in their hearts.”

“Yes, I suppose they do. Except, it isn’treally you. And the gift isn’t a gift,” he pointed the stem of hispipe towards the ice-encrusted sign stuck jauntily in one of the snow banks. It read Only £7.50. “And we both knowthey will have forgotten what the present is by the time they reach the windowof Toys-R-Us.”

Nick turned in annoyance to the Guide, who remainedpassively observing the conveyor belt of children being helped, by elves, in atthe front and out at the back of the Grotto. Nick was used to this kindof fanatical criticism, but it had been a long night and on this nightespecially, he expected better treatment.

“Look, nothing is perfect in this world. Whydeny these kids a few minutes of happiness, a few minutes with someone who islike me, carrying me in his heart, bearing The T-MOC to these kids. It’ll wearoff, I know that. I’m not naive. But out there is darkness and areal world they have to grow up in which is going to be hard, so they needsomething...more than life, ordinarylife, offers them.”

“But that is precisely my point. Do you notthink they need something more? And you are, if you will forgive mefor saying so, a supernatural entity, someone who can be everywhere in a night,who has access to power of which mortals only dream. Do you not think youcould do something more than permit these children to settle for a fleetingmoment of happiness? Something more for this world of tears?”

“No! That’s not me! I get out once ayear, shed some happiness, and go home again. It’s what I’m for. Not global transformation.”

“I wasn’t necessarily thinking global, not initiallyanyway. I was thinking more, one heart at a time.”

“I warm hearts for a few hours, I don’t change them.”

“No, but a man of your considerable ability, do younot think you could use your influence to point them somewhere they can? Wouldn’t that be more significant than two minutes in a plasticigloo with a fellow in a stick-on beard who’s desperate for the day to end sohe can go home?”

“It’s Christmas Eve! Why even say things likethat!”

“Actually, it’s not Christmas Eve. This isthree weeks ago – there’s another twenty one days of this uniqueness, hereunder the constellations of LEDs. Three more weeks of fruitless searching for something.”

“What is your problem?! So what if the uniquenessstretches into November, or October?”

“Ah, always Christmas but never winter.”

“And what’s wrong with a bloke in a stick-on beardbringing this uniqueness?”

“Nothing at all. You misunderstand me if youthink I’m against all of this. I’m just suggesting that it mayneed something more. And it all depends on what you mean by unique.” He pointed again with his pipe to a shop front on their floor, just a fewyards to their left. A hastily written sign proclaimed He’sHere! There in the window itself, surrounded by polystyrene snow, wasanother Santa.

It produced a slightly odd sensation to see two ofhimself at close quarters but Nick did not regard this as a big issue, notreally. “He’s just helping to spread it a little more.”

“As is he,” the pipe waved in the opposite direction. Another Santa had pushed a handcart of toys before another large store. He fiddled somewhere in cart’s depths and started a tinny recording of‘Winter Wonderland’.

In the lane snow is glistening sang Frank. A veil of tears for the virgin birth,sang Greg, whose turn on the loop-track had come round again

“And that one,” the Guide waved another trail ofsmoke. A major department store, whose first floor emerged a little way furtherdown, had now positioned elves at the door that were pretending to play plastictrumpets as Santa emerged triumphantly from within. His beard wassomewhat better than the man with the handcart, who turned his music up in thehope no one would notice.

Later on we’ll conspire, as we dream by the fire, sang Frank. “‘Till I woke with a yawn in thefirst light of dawn, and I saw him and through his disguise,” intoned Greg.

Nick was starting to feel dizzy and the competingnoises of canned music and kids shouting, and the startling increase in clonesof himself was making his legs feel weak. And then a voice cut through:

“Oi!! I don’t recognise you! You’re notlicensed!” Another Santa had emerged from ‘Discount Christmas’behind him. He looked very much like a Discount Santa and had theattitude to go with it. In the process of shouting he had also attractedthe attention of the other Santas who were now making their ways toward him.

“They can see me!” cried Nick. He turned indesperation to the Guide, but he had vanished and nothing remained of himexcept one small puff of smoke that drifted slowly up towards the glass-encasednight sky. A hand came down heavily on his shoulder – Discount Santa hadreached him, and the others soon arrived. A new jumble of angry notvery-jolly voices joined the Mall.
“You’re not approved...where’s your licence? Come here, on our patches...”

A small crowd gathered to view proceedings, unawarethat they were watching the Genuine Article being attacked by doppelgangers. It made a nice change from watching competing parents punching each otheroutside the toy-shop.

The militant Santas swarmed around Nick and all hecould see was red cloth and white fur swirling before him, their voicesjumbling with Greg’s, The Christmas you get you deserve. They wereon top of him and he could feel himself falling as he struggled against thecrimson tide and then finally succeeded in throwing off his blankets onto thebedroom floor.

He was up and sat on the edge of his bed in a moment. All he could hear was the sound of his own blood pumping at speed. Nothing else stirred in the darkness.

Part 3

2011-12-22T08:44:00.000Z

Theywalked to the front of the crowd forming at the foot of the mound. Nickrelaxed again, and looked up at the entrance of the stable, at the two joyful,grey-haired men in long robes who stood at the doorway. The people aroundthe mound were murmuring reverently, too quietly to pick up much of what theywere saying, but one word he heard several times and he was pretty sure he knewwhat it was: Yule. One of the robed men beckoned and, slowly, someof those with animals climbed the gentle rise to the entrance of the buildingusing their staffs for support. Ha! Getting the shepherds intoposition. Nick elbowed his guide gently in the ribs, which seemed ratherphysical for a ghost, “You had me going there! Well I might as well enjoyit, nothing like the T-MOC! When do the dancing puddings come on?”

The first man and sheep reached the threshold wherethe robed men stood. They both looked up and smiled and, as they raisedtheir arms to the sky, the crowd knelt.

“Devout lot,” said Nick, impressed.

“Oh yes,” the Guide replied, though he did not lookas pleased about this as Nick had expected. Nick turned back o the Stablein time to see the festival begin. What he did not see was where thepriests had been concealing their long,jagged knives, which they then used to simultaneously sweep along the sheep’sthroat from each side. Nick took a step back, eyes wide, “Whoa! What kind of nativity is this?!” Blood fountained from thestruggling sheep, as the men made their best effort to catch the hot redness ina wooden bowl.

“I told you,” said the Guide, “this is not anativity.”

“But you said this is Christmas past! I neversaw a Christmas like this!”

Furthercomment was cut short as one of the men produced a small bunch of twigs, dippedthem in the bowl of blood which was held over the twitching, prone form of theex-sheep, and sprinkled it over the temple doorway, and then flicked largedrops out across the crowd. Nick was too shocked to react and some landedon him. It barely showed on the red ofhis suit, but the white fur trimming was dashed now with crimson. Nicklooked down with horror, and started back through the crowd to the fringe ofthe woods. His Guide followed looking at the ground, his expression unreadable. In the safety of the tree, Nick turned on him.

“You are supposed to be the ghost – OK not-ghost,” hecorrected himself as he saw the Guide’sexpression, “of Christmas past. That’s not Christmas past. That’snot Christmas ever! What are you doing?”

“You know, for the man who is supposed to be theepitome of the Season, you seem to know as much about Christmas as a donkeyknows about playing the harp. Do you not remember this time? How itwas? Have you forgotten, has it faded? Have you hidden it? As the new decades slide into your soul, dothe old ones gradually fall out the back?”

The Guide walked into the woods, to a place where thelight shone brightly through the branches creating a pool of white on thefrosted ground. It was clean and pure, and the sounds of thrashinganimals became distant

Nick continued, “My memory isn’t what it was, but Iknow a Christmas tableau when I see one, and that wasn’t it! Sheep andshepherds, yes; ‘Away in a Manger’, yes; but not hey-ho and bloodall over the shop!”

The Guide seemed to wince at the mention of ‘Away ina Manger’, but this swiftly passed and he gave Nick the explanation he needed.“This is Christmas past, Christmas before Christmas. Christmashasn’t happened yet. It is yet to come. But here, in the forestsand villages of so called ‘civilisation’ they have their own ideas. Thisis Mid-winter, Yule, or whatever you want to call it. This is how it wasin so many places before.”

“Oh, oh..yes. Well....each to his own. Imean, they look happy enough...” He was staring at the ground, and wascompletely unable to square his desperate attempt at Ttolerance with the traumaof the bloody scene.”

“You have forgotten, “ the Guide was noddingwith certainty. “Oh, they looked cheerful. Around the edges. If you didn’t look at their eyes. Thisisn’t your twenty-first century cleaned-up minority alternative religion. They looked like that because they are desperate – for victory, for thesnow to recede, for good harvests, for the evil that lurks in the woods to be held back, for the dead to leave themalone. So they bring what little theyhave and give it to the gods (and you should see what they bring in some placeswhen they run out of sheep). Oh they may have a drink and a feast today. But when the sun sinks, and the great darkness descends, and theyremember winter has yet three months to blow, they will hope that the voicesand the eyes in the mist will leave them be.”

“Well, that’s not nice. But why show me this? This is millennia ago – Christmas has come! This...fear of thedarkness, this...running about trying to keep out the emptiness, it’s gone! Christmas has come, I’ve come,” he said proudly, patting his belly andgiving a little extra jiggle bonus.

“Oh yes, you’ve come. But what have you done? Even in my time, there was fear – fear of the dark, fear of the goblinsand elves in the woods – “

“Hey, some of my best friends are elves!”

“Not your green confections. These werethe shadows that waited in the woods. And Christmas came. And wedidn’t need to throw things at the darkness, because it was defeated. Wedidn’t hide in our man-made light to make us think there was hope, because the Light had come. We did not build walls of material goods tokeep out the voices and the eyes in the mist. The Light had come and filledeverything.”

“Oh I see! I see where this is going,” Nick’sire was rising at this snub, “You had to pull Back-to-the-Future to get in theusual cheap shot? There are people all over the world who will wake onChristmas morning with joy, because it’s the best day of the year, becauseeverything is light and warmth, because they will have nice stuff, because fortwelve hours it will be OK. Is that so bad? Do you reallybegrudge them that?”

“No. No, I don’t.” He took a step nearerand looked him squarely in the eyes, “But is that all? Was it really thelights and the red clothes and the pretty parcels that stopped all that?”He pointed again to the wooden building in the distance. “Is that all youcan do? Is that really all you’re for?”

“All? All?! I bust my gut travelling the entireworld in twenty four hours, and you ask is that all?!”

Nick turned in order to march off in righteousindignation. Sadly he had not noticed how he had backed up close to thetree. There was an almighty thwack and he reeled backwards and hitthe ground hard and sat up in bed.

He was panting. He was sweating.

Quick Review: Technopoly

2011-12-21T20:47:00.000Z

Not as brilliant as Amusing Ourselves to Death but still a provocative wake-up call for Western society. Postman's contention is that our civilisation has moved through several stages: from being tool-users (where our technology assisted us in our purpose as humans) to technopoly, when we start being shaped by and submissive to it. Technology here inevitably includes TV, computers, phones etc - but also, exam grades, time and motion studies, and statistics.

It's not hard to see his point (it's assumed these days that some homework will be done using the internet - but a recent piece of homework required a biography of a 'celebrity'. Celebrity details being ephemeral and fleeting, this practically demanded use of the internet; indeed left me wondering if it was 'celebrity', rather than someone who had done something useful, because it fits what children are generally prepared to do: use the internet. In other words: was the homework chosen to facilitate the technology more than the child's education?). The mobile phone (still a distant idea when this book was published) is a blindingly obvious example.

Postman's point, as always, is not to turn one's back on technology, but to evaluate it and return it to the status of tool. The terrifying thought, that is manifestly true, is that technology has altered our worldview, our thought processes, what we deem to be important - and we never really noticed it happening. His cry is to resist the trivialisation of the past that technopoly brings, regain context and analysis and resist the surrender.

Part 2

2011-12-21T10:12:00.002Z

He looked at the door. Nothing. The window: also nothing. No noise. For theumpteenth time that night, he restarted normal breathing, lay back and lookedat the ceiling. Which wasn’t there. What was there was dawn,breaking over a forest of pine trees gently dusted with frost. His worldshifted ninety degrees, as his prone position became vertical, and the bedroom wall, with itswalk-in cupboard, became now the horizontal axis of the world. Mind you, walland cupboard were no longer visible beneath him, but rather a lot of natureinstead. The bed covers were gone, and he found himself stepping, notinto the cupboard, but onto frosty ground. He turned, but was alreadypretty sure of what was behind him: more trees, no bed. He gave asigh. It wasn’t as though he were a stranger to strange things – anyonewith a reindeer which can hit 25,000mph without combusting has seen a thing or two. But this wasmagic out of his control, not at his beck and call which was the way he preferredlife. Plus it was on this most inconvenient of nights. Mostdisturbingly, if this followed the traditional route, he was about to beconfronted with something from his-

“Past! Correct!” said an accented and abrupt voice.

Twenty paces away at the edge of the nearest rank ofpines stood a man swathed in dark robes with a floppy black beret affair on hishead. He was a little on the plump side, with slightly hooded eyes and anunshaven and...well, a bit of a knobbly face really, if Nick were honest.

“Are you...” Nick began, took a deep breath to coverhis unease, and started again. “Are you the, ahem, Ghost of Christmas Past?”

“I don’t do ghosts.” Abrupt and forceful seemed to behis style. “But this is the past. Come on.” He turned on hisheal and walked into the woods. His accent was middle Europe somewhere,Germanic perhaps.

“Where are we? When are we?”

“I have no idea what it’s called now. It wasSaxony once. Or later, rather. Things change.”

They were crunching through the woods at a good pace,over frosted needles, the light staying bright and crisp even through thelayers of branches.

“It’s very...Chrismassy here,” said Nick, hopefully.

“This is Christmas past. You’re here to see theTrue Meaning Of Christmas, what it is when all the fripperies are removed”.

“Oh! Like I haven’t heard that before.” Cynicism and the weariness of the season got the better of any fear.“That’s all I ever hear, why bring me here to hear it again?” Frostyfronds were poking his face and leaving sparkles in his beard, none of whichhelped his mood. “Hang on, it’s not one of those confounded schoolnativities, is it? Done outdoors for realism and atmosphere?” He waved his hands and wriggled his fingersdramatically as he stomped along, warming to his theme. “Same thing every year– half an hour of Christmas-is-nearly-here, dancing snowflakes, crackerssinging about presents and damn stupid reindeer falling down chimneys. Then ‘Ooh, but what’s the T-MOC?’ And wham! Suddenly we’ve time-travelledto Bethlehem via some idiot magic fairy, and “Ooh a kid in a trough, now weknow the T-MOC! It’s not about presents after all! Now we can gorge ourselveson cholesterol and empty the industrial output of the Far East into our loungeswitha clear conscience!” And then back as quick as a flash to the dancing puddings.”

The man stopped, turned and fixed Nick with piercingeyes. “I like nativities.” This was delivered as a statement offact universally to be accepted, not a preference. “And no we are not visitinga nativity”. He turned and continued walking. Nick followed, moresubdued. He knew he could obliterate this man with one well-aimed belly-flop,but instinct warned this would be a Bad Idea.

Soon his attention was distracted from his mixedfeelings of righteous indignation and impending doom. Through the trees hecaught sight of some kind of building. As they drew nearer it becameapparent that a clearing had been formed in the woods, and on a small rise, awooden structure had been erected. Rough hewn wood formed a building bigenough to provide stabling for maybe six of his own reindeer. As theyneared the fringe of the clearing it became apparent no reindeer were involved,but there were animals.

A crowd of people were forming – ordinary peasants bythe look, but here and there someone grander. That is to say their robes werenot so ragged, and the glint of gold adornment could be seen. Nick wasunsure on specifics, but he knew this Past was a long way back; he couldn’tremember seeing people quite like this, although his memory was patchier thesedays. None of the people seemed to be able to see Nick or theGuide, but this was hardly unexpected under the circumstances. A handfulwere bringing animals with them, a few sheep and goats, a pig over there, andmaybe that was a donkey coming through the trees. A wooden building,people gathering with a look of happiness (well some of them), sheep? Nick knew what this was; apparently spectral Guides were not compelledto be entirely honest.

Dalrymple: bad reasoning for making it legal

2011-12-21T10:01:00.000Z

It is of course true, but only trivially so, that the present illegality of drugs is the cause of he criminality surrounding their distribution. Likewise, it is the illegality of stealing cars that creates car thieves. In fact the ultimate cause of all criminality is law. As far as I am aware, no one has ever suggested that the law should therefore be abandoned. Moreover, the impossibility of winning the "war" against theft, burglary, robbery, and fraud has never been used as an argument that these categories of crime should be abandoned.

Our Culture... p225

A Christmas Story, part 1

2011-12-20T15:02:00.001Z

A year ago I wrote a short story in great haste, and really enjoyed the experience. I've tidied it up a little bit since them, and will now inflict (in several episodes) it on the world (all 3 of you) for nostalgia's sake...

Nick's Carol

Nick sat on the edge of the bed, in the semi-darkness of his own specialroom. The cushioning movement of the mattress was inviting but thecreaking and sagging under his considerable weight was alarming, so he sat verystill for a moment and just sighed. This time of year he slept alone, andin all honesty on this particular night he was quite relieved at not having totalk. He just wanted sleep, now and badly, and he could only afford a fewhours before starting work again.

It was tricky pushing off first one boot and then theother using only his feet, but there was no way he was going to risk bendingdown, for both his sake and the bed’s. He had hung his coat on thebedpost, but was there any point in taking anything else off? Not really:he would hardly be asleep long enough, and he’d be wearing these trousers forthe next forty eight hours anyway, so a few hours in bed would make littledifference. They’d be fine, he thought, as he pivoted round, raised hislegs onto the bed and flopped backwards. The bed made a sound suggestingthat it had been holding its breath at the sight of the approaching mass butwas now having its last breath squeezed out, to the accompaniment ofsomeone cutting taut piano wires. Nick lay fearfully still for a moment,but the bed, the floor, gravity and Newton, all seemed to be holding a truce,so he relaxed, staring dreamily at the shifting shadows above him. Outside, the moonlight was sparkling on the ice, and inside the ceilinglooked like a monochrome reflection of a babbling stream. He watched theshimmering light, moving his eyes across the ceiling and down the wall, untilthe strobing disappeared behind the dark hillock of his own belly. Hegave it a quick jiggle, just to make sure he could, and shut his eyes. Athirty-six hour shift in the workshop had taken its toll and although his eyesached with the strain, and the noise of the nightshift just reached the edgesof his perception, he was soon asleep.

And then he was awake. Suddenly, and he didn’t knowwhy. A noise, somewhere, or a song or maybe a word. Something...

There it was again! But no song; instead ashuffling, a dragging, and with it a tinkling, a clanking, somewhere in thebuilding. It was drawing closer, along the corridor towards his door. No one should be out there at this time of night, not on thisnight! Nick’s sleepy mind was back online. The proximity of theworrying sounds suggested that whatever produced them was now merely a fewsteps from his room. Where was security? The Gate-Elves knew no one wasallowed anywhere near this corridor, let alone his door. But ittranspired that the door was irrelevant, as first a hand, followed by its arm,a torso, and then the whole figure of a man passed through as though nothingphysical stood in its way. Given the relative transparency of the formnow stood before him, eyes shining in the night, it appeared to be the man andnot the door that had a loose relationship with physics. Nick’s hand,which had been on its way towards the panic-button under his pillow (there hadbeen time when ‘fans’ had come a little too close for comfort) slipped away as,at a subconscious level, he realised two things:

First, Security was probably useless in dealing witha man that can walk through walls.

Second, he recognised the figure before him.

By now, Nick was upright on the edge of his torturedbed, staring at the unnerving form before him – through whom he could stilljust make out the panelling of the door. Although the details werenecessarily hazy, he registered the long, brown, worn robe; the sandalsprotruding from its ragged hem; the balding dome, with incongruously well-kempthair over the ears, flowing seamlessly into a long, grey, beard. Hanging low onhis chest was a simple cross of grey metal, and in his left hand a small,bulging hessian sack, the source of the tinkling and clanking.

“Oh, really?” said Nick, fear momentarilysuppressed by recognition and the long-practised habit of keeping the upperhand when dealing with trouble. “The bag and everything?”

The spectre remained impassive, but his mouth openedand instead of the dry, dusty and distant voice Nick had been expecting (he’dread plenty of books, he knew how this ought to go) there came the same deepvoice which Nick remembered and had comforted so many in years gone by. Tonight, not so much.

“Are you really in any position to criticise theexploitation of the symbolism of legend?”

Uh oh, he could see which way this was going.

“Don’t start on me. We went through this over 1500years ago. It’s not going to change anything tonight.”

“It doesn’t even trouble you that I have returnedfrom Beyond to visit you?”

“I live at the North Pole without freezing, in aninvisible citadel, surrounded by magic elves and singing penguins. Exactly how disoriented were you expecting me to be?” This was allessentially true, but also masked a deep sense of unease that threatened tospill over into anxiety that something fundamental to his life was coming underthreat. “It’s hardly original, is it Nicholas?”, he continued in a tonethat was meant to sound relaxed yet picky, “And where’s your bit of cloth tokeep your jaw shut? You missed it.”

“The trappings of death are unnecessary where I havecome from.” For a moment the gauzy shape held a rich glow, then faded. This troubled Nick more than the previous few minutes.

Nicholas continued, “I know that the way things havedeveloped were often beyond your control. But you have such resources, suchpower, such opportunity – and what do you do with it? You’ve lost yourway. You have hidden...you have forgotten.”

“Oh I see, we’re going to have some lessons in the T-MOC,like I haven’t heard them a thousand times before.”

“I’m not sure you would recognise the T-MOC anymore,not if it bit you.” Nicholas, paused and held Nick in his gaze, as if he wereconsidering whether what he had to say next was too painful to verbalise. “You will be visited tonight by three Guides...”

“You have got to be joking – “

“Three visitors, and they will deal with you. Watch for the first at midnight.”

Nick opened his eyes. He was lying in bed. The ceiling was flickering as usual. He looked at the door – no onethere. He realised he’d been holding his breath for some time,exhaled quietly, and started breathing regularly; the bed joined in onpercussion. Why tonight of all nights, on Eve’s Eve, would he dreamof someone he hadn’t seen in centuries, dead and buried a hundred generationsago? Well, when he said ‘dead’...technically anyway, to all intents andpurposes. He was part of the past, not the present, in more ways thanone. He had no right turning up in his dreams, not tonight. Him,with his dogmatic commitment to ethereal hopes, to living forever, now fifteenhundred years six-feet under, dead, dead as a doorna- no, don’t say that. And the bag of gold, what was that about? No academicbelieved the coins and chimney stuff.

Overwork and too much adrenalin. Penguincoffee. That was the problem.

A bell began to strike midnight. Nick wentrigid, eyes staring at the ceiling. It was not simply that the dream gavethe bell an ominous sound - he didn’t own a clock. Clocks were a prettyvague concept in a place where the only regular event was annual; thenearest was a quarter of a mile away, and it didn’t have a bell. It had a bigflower (in the centre of a dial surrounded by animated carvings of gnomes) thepetals of which unfolded once a month, when a clockwork fairy popped out andsaid “PoopPoop! It’s February!” or whatever. There was no other clock.

But the bell of the clock that wasn’t there continuedto toll. Nine...ten...eleven...twelve...

Dalrymple: freedom

2011-12-12T17:08:00.000Z

The idea that freedom is merely the ability to act upon one's whims is surely very thin and hardly begins to capture the complexity of human existence; a man whose appetite is his law strikes us not as liberated but enslaved. And when such a narrowly conceived freedom is made the touchstone of public policy, a dissolution of society is bound to follow. No culture that makes publicly sanctioned self-indulgence its highest good can long survive; a radical egotism is bound to ensue, in which any limitations upon personal behaviour are experienced as infringements of basic rights. Distinctions between the important and the trivial, between the freedom to criticise received ideas and the freedom to take LSD, are precisely the standards that keep societies from barbarism.

Our Culture... p224.

Dalrymple: art is more

2011-12-09T13:39:00.001Z

"It has always been the job of artists," writes Norman Rosenthal in his grossly disingenuous essay...it would be difficult to formulate a less truthful, more wilfully distorted summary of art history, of which a small part - and by no means the most glorious - is mistaken for the whole, that the unjustifiable may be justified.

"Artists must continue the conquest of new territory and new taboos," Rosenthal continues, in prescriptive mood. He admits no other purpose of art: to break taboos is thus not a possible function of art but its only function. Small wonder, then, that if all art is the breaking of taboos, all breaking of taboos soon comes to be regarded as art.

Of course he doesn't really mean what he says; but then for intellectuals like him, words are to express propositions or truth but to distinguish the writer socially from the common heard, too artistically unenlightened and unsophisticated to advocate the abandonment of all restraint and standards...

...a taboo exists only if it is a taboo for everyone: and what is broken symbolically in art will soon enough be broken in reality.

...when respect, hatred, love, loathing, and contempt all call forth the same artistic product, then our sensibility, our power of discrimination, has been eroded out of existence.

Our Culture..., p146-8

Paul Tripp - repentance

2011-12-08T20:14:00.001Z

...I have often been struck with the reality that the man sitting in front of me lacked accurate knowledge of himself. And you can't grieve what you don't see, you can't confess what you haven't grieved, and you can't repent of what you haven't confessed.

Paul Tripp

Dalrymple: the good of humanity as motive

2011-11-30T11:18:00.001Z

Almost every intellectual claims to have the welfare of humanity, and particularly the welfare of the poor, at heart; but since no mass murder takes place without its perpetrators alleging that they are acting for the good of mankind, philanthropic sentiment can plainly take a multiplicity of forms.

Our Culture..., p77

Dalrymple: what new atheism misses

2011-11-16T09:46:00.001Z

Just a link to a fascinating article by Dalrymple, himself an atheist, on what new atheism has obscured.

Dalrymple: cost and context of choice as king

2011-11-16T07:46:00.001Z

Written in 2004, long before the economic crash, and of the riots of 2011:

The consequences to the children and to society do not enter into the matter: for in any case it is the function of the state to ameliorate by redistributive taxation the material effects of individual irresponsibility, and to ameliorate the emotional, educational and spiritual effects by an army of social workers, psychologists, educators, counselors and the like, who have themselves come to form a powerful vested interest of dependence on the government.

So while my patients know in their hearts that what they are doing is wrong, they are encouraged nevertheless to do it by the strong belief that they have the right to do it, because everything is merely a matter of choice. Almost no one in Britain ever publicly challenges this belief....

...Ultimately the moral cowardice of the intellectual and political elites is responsible for the continuing social disaster that has overtaken Britain, a disaster whose full social and economic consequences have yet to be seen. A sharp economic downturn would expose how far the policies of successive governments, all in the direction of libertinism, have atomised British society, so that all social solidarity within families and communities, so protective in times of hardship, has been destroyed.

Our Culture..., p.17&18

Differentiated Engagement

2011-11-08T16:15:00.002Z

People often highlight the tension between Peter's calls to resist and submit. But Peter, argues Volf, is giving 'an example of differentiated acceptance and rejection of the surrounding culture'.

That is, foreigners dwell respectfully in their host nation but participate in culture only to the extent that its values and customs coincide with their own that they wish to preserve. In this way the salutation of the letter introduces a concept of differentiated engagement with society...of neither full assimilation nor complete withdrawal.

Tim Keller summarises:

Unlike models that call for a transformation of culture or call for a Christendom-like alliance of church and state, Peter expects the gospel to be always highly offensive, never completely embraced or accepted by the world. This is a caution to those evangelicals and mainline Christians who hope to bring about an essentially Christian culture.

And unlike models that call solely for evangelism and are highly pessimistic about influencing culture, both Peter in 1 Peter 2:12 and Jesus in Matthew 5:16 expect some aspects of Christian faith and practice ot be highly attractive in any pagan culture, influencing people to praise and glorify God.

Quoted in Everyday Church, Tim Chester and Steve Timmis, p60-61

The Books #8 - Amusing Ourselves to Death

2011-11-08T09:49:00.000Z

Cor me and Dickie have really let this one go....

Anyway, not a Christian book or even a religious book this time, but I think one of the best books I have ever read with profound implications on how we live as humans, Christians, and Bible teachers.

Neil Postman's book was published in 1985, which means he misses the entire internet age. But this study of media, entertainment, and the trade-off that new technology always produces, is so timeless it feels utterly relevant now (that's not to say I would not, if one appeared, immediately buy a study on the internet produced by Postman. I would.)

Postman is a writer of clarity extraordinaire, and no words are wasted in this volume as he reveals how a shift in technology (primarily TV here) produces a shift in the way we think and live - but usually we don't notice and go blindly on.

Prepare yourself for revelations galore about the way you view the world because of the technology you appropriate. Sheer brilliance.

Luther: this is priceless!

2011-11-01T14:18:00.003Z

The defects in a preacher are soon spied; let a preacher be endued with ten virtues, and but one fault, yet this one will eclipse and darken all his virtues and gifts, so evil is the world in these times. Dr. Justus Jonas has all the good virtues and qualities a man may have; yet merely because he hums and spits, the people cannot bear that good and honest man.

Tabletalk

Quick review: Our Culture...What's Left of it

2011-10-31T16:21:00.001Z

A friend bought me this one and despite the alarming cover, it makes for an interesting read.

It's a collection of articles from the late 90s up to 2004 by a man who has travelled widely (he doesn't let much time pass without reminding us of this) but spent most of his years as a doctor in difficult situations (inner city, prisons etc) which has given him, in many ways, a view of life not dissimilar to that of traditional Christian morality, but developed from the hard knocks of real life rather than the Bible (an interesting point in itself!)

And that's what makes the book interesting: he places himself in distinction from the liberal intelligentsia (they come in for a hammering) who pontificate from the security of their upper/middle class environs without bearing the true consequences of their philosophy; whereas he has been engaged in an almost futile struggle to help those at the bottom of the heap who end up playing out the true meaning of relativism in their damaged and disastrous lives.

The essays cover a lot of ground from why criminals get fatter in prison to the Lady Chatterly trial (lots of quotations of profanity here, just to warn you - but the essay puts the case in a completely different light from the popular conception).

So, powerful social comment from someone who has seen the dark-side; nicely and eloquently debunks much of what has passed for tolerant enlightened thinking. But lacking in hope, because he honestly can't see how things will change (and one can understand why), underlined by his career decision which is revealed in the very first article.

NB. being a doctor in some very brutal situations, and having travelled to some very nasty places, there are descriptions and words here which don't make for pleasant reading (especially late at night - eg. his essay on Rosemary and Fred West).

700!

2011-10-31T16:07:00.003Z

Cor that came round quick (Schaeffer's fault). As always thanks to that great centenarian, Dickie Mint.

Dalrymple: the frivolity of evil

2011-10-31T16:06:00.001Z

...the frivolity of evil: the elevation of passing pleasure for oneself over the long-term misery of others to whom one owes duty. What better phrase than the frivolity of evil describes the conduct of a mother who turns her fourteen year old child out of doors because her latest boyfriend does not want him or her in the house? And what better phrase describes the attitude of those intellectuals who see in this conduct nothing but an extension of human freedom and choice, another thread in life's rich tapestry?

Our Culture... p12

Luther: a good preacher

2011-10-31T16:02:00.003Z

A good preacher should have these properties and virtues: first, to teach systematically; secondly, he should have a ready wit; thirdly, he should be eloquent; fourthly, he should have a good voice; fifthly, a good memory; sixthly, he should know when to make an end; seventhly, he should be sure of his doctrine; eightly, he should venture and engage body and blood, wealth and honor, in the Word; ninthly, he should suffer himself to be mocked and jeered of every one.

Tabletalk 400 (or 397 depending which one you look at!)

Dalrymple: medical happiness

2011-10-20T09:54:00.000+01:00

There is something to be said here about the word "depression", which has almost entirely eliminated the word and even the concept of unhappiness from modern life. Of the thousands of patients I have seen, only two or three have ever claimed to be unhappy: all the rest have said they were depressed. This semantic shift is deeply significant, for it implies that dissatisfaction with life is itself pathological, a medical condition, which it is the responsibility of the doctor to alleviate by medical means. Everyone has a right to health; depression is unhealthy; therefore everyone has a right to be happy (the opposite of being depressed). This idea in turn implies that one's state of mind, or one's mood, is or should be independent of the way one lives one's life, a belief that must deprive human existence of all meaning, radically disconnecting reward from conduct.

Our Culture, What's Left of It, p9

Luther: don't torment them!

2011-10-19T14:30:00.002+01:00

I would not have preachers torment their hearers, and detain them with long and tedious preaching, for the delight of hearing vanishes therewith, and the preachers hurt themselves.

Table Talk

Without eternity...

2011-10-12T11:15:00.005+01:00

Just two points from Paul tripp's article on Eternity Amnesia:

3. Asking too much of people. When we fail to live with forever in view, we will unwittingly and consistently ask the people around us to provide the paradise that our hearts crave. The people around us do not have the ability to give us that constant inner peace and satisfaction that we will only ever experience in eternity. Asking the people in your church to give what they cannot give ends in disappointment, frustration, conflict, and division.
4. Being controlling or fearful. In ministry, why do we tend to swing from fear to control and back again? Because, in our eternity amnesia, we feel as if somehow, some way, life is passing us by. It's important to remember that our unfulfilled ministry longings do not so much announce to us that this world or our ministries have failed us, but that we were designed for another world. Peace in our present life and ministry is found only when we live with the coming world in view.

Caution, historians of Providence

2011-10-07T09:37:00.004+01:00

A Christian has to affirm Providence, but a Christian historian should not assume to know the mind of God about most particular events. In fact, there are all sorts of bad examples in history where people have falsely made that assumption. In the modern world, there aren't too many examples of Christian historians who have employed particular examples of Providence well.

For most historians, I think it's wiser to affirm a general sort of Providence and yet not presume that you as an individual can know what God intended for any particular situation in the past.

Mark Noll

Pastor Yusef: spritual tests

2011-09-30T16:29:00.002+01:00

Many attempt to flee from their spiritual tests, and they have to face those same tests in a more difficult manner, because no one will be victorious by escaping from them, but with patience and humility he will be able to overcome all the tests, and gain victory.

Yusef Nadarkhani
Lakan Prison in Rasht
2/June/2010
(currently facing possible execution in Iran)

Quick-review: Love Wins

2011-09-15T15:53:00.002+01:00

I have written a much longer thing about this book for other purposes, but really just want to make a few much briefer comments here. This is partly because it won't be a "quick" review if I don't, and partly because of Jon Dyer's timely article "Let not many of you presume to be bloggers" which was posted at the height of the blogging frenzy about 'Love Wins'.

What is Bell trying to do with this book? I think it's this: soften the edges of the 'traditional' view of judgment so as to make the Christian faith more appealing to non-Christians and less problematic to Bible-believers. And if we're honest, who has not been tempted to do so? We're all looking for the way to make it more...well, comfortable. But from an evangelical position, such a wish cannot be the dominant force in how we look at what the Bible has to say. Which leads to a number of concerns about the book - all of which I give as provisional, in that it is possible I have not read the text closely enough, and perhaps were Rob Bell here to comment he would show me how I have erred. However, as it stands right now, what bothers me is this:

1. It's pretty dull. It promises to deal with the biggest question facing humanity, but manages (for me) to make that unexciting.
2. Contra Tim Keller's maxim that we should present the opposing view as well as we possibly can, Bell presents the 'traditional view' as something incoherent, positing concepts that are complementary or held in tension as competing and irreconcilable.
3. On the plus side he does ask some useful questions which probably many Christians struggle with and we need to develop better answers for them.
4. The most infuriating thing is how checking out his argument is routinely obscured: no footnotes, no interaction with other interpretations, not even complete Bible references. This is very worrying when bearing in mind younger Christians who might struggle to followup many of his (controversial and sometimes tenuous) claims...
5. ...which is very important for when he fires off a magazine of verses to prove a point but without context - eg.in pulling together many texts to show God's justice is always corrective (p.85ff) he largely draws on verses promising restoration after the Exile: texts which neither refer to eternal punishment nor even, by and large, to individuals who were corrected, as most of them died in Babylon.
6. Is he a universalist? Maybe, but having given several reasons for presuming most people will be saved (ie. hell is an offputting idea, God's love beats any other criteria for deciding how God might react to sin, God's judgments are always restorative) he then leaves the door wide open to assume pretty much everyone will be saved, maybe even post-mortem (p.76). Or maybe not (p.115) as, having led us up to edge of universalism, he basically says "But who knows? And we don't have to decide".
7. There are also, sadly, many unqualified assumptions and interpetations of Biblical texts (pp.26, 51, 85 for example) that are occasionally quite odd.
8. Again, on the plus side, he does eventually emphasise the cross - but even here in a way that suffers from vagueness.

I'm really loathe, in light of the outrage its publication caused, to be harsh - and indeed have cautioned against hard responses to Rob Bell on several occasions. But it really isn't a great book.

Interestingly, my wife pointed out a paragraph in an unrelated blog written by someone who has moved away from the 'traditional' view. It's interesting because of its gut-reaction factor: the writer was concerned about the apparent kidnapping of a small child that had just occurred:

And I cried in the kitchen, pouring out cereal, and (my husband) quietly admitted that it is in these times that he really, really wishes there was eternal, conscious punishment, the worst of any hell, for men like this because anything else seems not-enough for what that poor boy might be going through, for even the act of making a child ask for his mama and then keeping him from her is a sin beyond any I can fathom.

Hell is a hard thing to contemplate, and like CS Lewis many of us would remove the doctrine if it lay in our power to do so. But that is hardly the last word or the only deeply felt and authentic response to it, as that quote shows. And it certainly isn't the way to govern how we interpret the Bible.

Spiritual father

2011-09-13T12:10:00.002+01:00

In Christianity Today Brett McCracken writes, "In order to remain relevant in this new landscape, many evangelical pastors and church leaders are following the lead of the hipster trendsetters, making sure their churches can check off all the important items on the hipster checklist." Including:

"Show clips from R-rated Coen Brothers films (No Country for Old Men, Fargo) during services.
"Sponsor church outings to microbreweries.
"Put a worship pastor onstage decked in clothes from American Apparel.
"Be okay with cussing."

I'm not against cultural awareness and engagement. For most people today, pop culture is their culture, so it can be an act of love to learn it. But to be a spiritual father means you are definitely not Wholly Relevant. Dads are, by definition, older and not hip. This one hurts. I spent much of my forties not wanting to accept my age, not wanting to lose my place among the popular and the trendsetting.

However, to pursue relevance is to lose your spiritual power. When all you read, watch, and listen to is what everyone else is reading, watching, and listening to, you have nothing to say.

Chris, a young guy in my church who moved to Manhattan for grad school, explained to me: "The highly relevant pastor is bro'. There's certainly a place for pastors to be in tune with culture and to be relatable. But where do I find a man of God who will nurture my spiritual life? That's what's I need. Relevance is easy to find. But when I stumble in that same old sin that I keep slipping in, I need someone with wisdom and maturity to go to. It's fine if that person also happens to know about some great new indie bands, but in those moments, I need something else. I need depth."

Leadership

Quick-review: Cry the Beloved Country

2011-09-09T17:05:00.003+01:00

Standing in a century-long line between Uncle Tom and To Kill a Mockingbird, Cry the Beloved Country explores similar territory but with a distinctive voice. Unlike Mockingbird, it does not leave a warm glow as was generated by the way Harper Lee communicates a Southern childhood in spite of the harsh reality of racism. This is not a failure of writing, but a necessary effect of a different kind of book. Here there are real, fallible, loveable characters (Kumalo, Msimangu, Jarvis) but the canvas upon which they are painted is vast; it is the size of a nation. And the tragedy of that nation's peoples is too complex and great for a 'happy ending'. Alan Paton was writing soon after WWII and the solution to South Africa's problems were still half a century away, and so there is no sweetening of the tragedy encapsulated in the novel. But for all that, it is suffused with hope, even though its fruition is admitted to be so far off as to be unknowable.

In 1948 an ageing Zulu parson travels to Johannesburg to search for his sister and his son who, like millions of others, left the devastated countryside and crumbling tribal culture (both victims of complex factors, but predominantly exploitation by the white minority) to find a new life. His journey of discovery reveals perhaps the most significant character in the book, South Africa itself, and the complexities of a divided nation, with a fearful minority in control, and a devastated majority looking for hope.

A truly profound and moving book, written in a style which initially takes some getting used to, but also helps to produce an immediacy of effect.

Wangerin: pay attention! (the blessings of affliction)

2011-09-06T17:21:00.000+01:00

Surely it's high time - isn't it? - that we pay as much attention to the blessings of a long affliction as we do to the pain for which we curse it. Please: it's not a man's peculiar interpretation or a woman's particular gift for a long-suffering patience which enables each to live the sickness better than another person does. It's a faith available to everyone. (Though there always is, of course, a learning curve.)

Pay attention!

In the Lakota tongue: wachinksapa yo! - which meaning is closer to "Be attentive" than to something we do sporadically. Be ever in a state of attention.

Wangerin, Letters, p196-7

Wangerin: no longer rushing into the future

2011-09-06T17:16:00.002+01:00

I don't look forward so much any more, dashing to grasp the future. I look left and right. I've the Time, you see, to scrutinise all that is. And what is companions me. The trees can't list their roots and move. A single motion fills a season. Well then: let me abide by them awhile. My toes, my roots. A good rain can linger almost forever.

The shorter the time, the vaster my scope.

Wangerin, Letters, p.195

Wangerin: little krill and death

2011-09-06T17:12:00.000+01:00

I find myself somewhat sorrowful to lose the riveting focus which death;s likelihood provides a sick old man. Now, together with my resprouting hairs, there rushes back a sea-tide of all the little things that hector daily living - the krill that clouds and crowds the waters once the whale is gone. Perhaps that indicates another benefaction which I ought to draw from the previous seven months: stick, Wally, to the sense of the proximity of death in order to recognise (at some spiritual and perdurable level) how little are the little krill - even as little as dying (always, always) is near. Here.

Letters from the Land of Cancer, p.124

Wangerin: Robert Siegel's Rinsed with Gold

2011-09-06T17:06:00.000+01:00

I'm very old fashioned (actually, Milton would take issue with this and accuse me of being modern a cheap) but I do prefer it when a poet has spent a long time working in rhyme to the finished item. So it has to be really striking for me when he doesn't. Robert Siegel hasn't hear, but his imagery has such rhyme I found this wonderful:

Let this day’s air praise the Lord—
Rinsed with gold, endless, walking the fields,
Blue and bearing the clouds like censers,
Holding the sun like a single note
Running through all things, a basso profundo
Rousing the birds to an endless chorus.

Let the river throw itself down before him,
The rapids laugh and flash with his praise,
Let the lake tremble about its edges
And gather itself in one clear thought
To mirror the heavens and the reckless gulls
That swoop and rise on its glittering shores.

Let the lawn burn continually before him
A green flame, and the tree’s shadow
Sweep over it like the baton of a conductor,
Let winds hug the housecorners and woodsmoke
Sweeten the world with her invisible dress,
Let the cricket wind his heartspring
And draw the night by like a child’s toy.

Let the tree stand and thoughtfully consider
His presence as its leaves dip and row
The long sea of winds, as sun and moon
Unfurl and decline like contending flags.

Let blackbirds quick as knives praise the Lord,
Let the sparrow line the moon for her nest
And pick the early sun for her cherry,
Let her slide on the outgoing breath of evening,
Telling of raven and dove,
The quick flutters, homings to the green houses.

Let the worm climb a winding stair,
Let the mole offer no sad explanation
As he paddles aside the dark from his nose,
Let the dog tug on the leash of his bark
The startled cat electrically hiss,
And the snake sign her name in the dust

In joy. For it is he who underlies
The rock from its liquid foundation,
The sharp contraries of the giddy atom,
The unimaginable curve of space,
Time pulling like a patient string,
And gravity, fiercest of natural loves.

At his laughter, splendor riddles the night,
Galaxies swarm from a secret hive,
Mountains split and crawl for aeons
To huddle again, and planets melt
In the last tantrum of a dying star.

At his least signal spring shifts
Its green patina over half the earth,
Deserts whisper themselves over the cities,
Polar caps widen and wither like flowers.

In his stillness rock shifts, root probes,
The spider tenses her geometrical ego,
The larva dreams in the heart of the peachwood,
The child’s pencil makes a shaky line,
The dog sighs and settles deeper,
And a smile takes hold like the feet of a bird.
Sit straight, let the air ride down your backbone,
Let your lungs unfold like a field of roses,
Your eyes hang the sun and moon between them,
Your hands weigh the sky in even balance,
Your tongue, swiftest of members, release a word
Spoken at conception to the sanctum of genes,
And each breath rise sinuous with praise.

Let your feet move to the rhythm of your pulse
(Your joints like pearls and rubies he has hidden),
And your hands float high on the tide of your feelings.
Now, shout from the stomach, hoarse with music,
Give gladness and joy back to the Lord,
Who, sly as a milkweed, takes root in your heart.

Quick-review: Letters from the Land of Cancer

2011-09-06T17:00:00.002+01:00

In 2005 well-known Christian author (and professor and pastor) Walter Wangerin was diagnosed with cancer. And complex, difficult to treat, no-cure cancer. He did what, I suppose, many of us who think through our pens, would do: he started writing. So he wrote letters to friends and family periodically, from diagnosis through treatment, declining strength and ultimately to the point when the tumours stopped getting worse.

This realism, the real-time reflections and Wangerin's genuine ability to write (face it, not all Christian writers can write) give the book a revealing, thoughtful and yet calm ability to explore cancer, life, death, hope, the medical system, the past...and to see from inside a man's head what I have had to watch, in my 'professional' capacity, from outside on far too many occasions.

What do I take away from this book?
- how communicating with those who care about you, to know they are there and listening, is a vast help in horrendous times
- the importance of living in the now and how imminent death restores that childlike ability to dwell in the moment
- and that when the moment comes, when we are now facing what we at least believe to be the end, what we feared we would fear, how we feared our faith might fail, that we might dwell with constant panic - does not necessarily have to be the case at all.

Word-clouds

2011-09-02T17:19:00.001+01:00

My friend told me of word-clouds
So I went outside to look:
The sky was crinkled with pages,
Wallpapered with a book.

The light fled and rain fell from
the Gutenberg dome aloft,
so I waded back to my house
through commas and full stops.

(composed today in 5minutes, so excuse any corner-cutting)

Quick-review: The Vicar of Wakefield

2011-08-31T16:12:00.000+01:00

...by Oliver Goldsmith.

Originally sold for publication by Samuel Johnson in order to keep Goldsmith from debtor's prison, the book feels like a staging post on the way to Jane Austen. That is to say, the cultural feel, the matters of class and decency, the misunderstandings, and revelations of fortunes all appear. But it is written in a simpler style, much briefer, and has the advantage over Austen that, quite often, something actually happens.

I suspect much of the humour and (probable) satire was lost on me: I felt often as if it were happening but I lacked the cultural knowledge to pick up on it. But the story itself was nice enough: the tale of a clergyman for whom everything goes horribly wrong and then ultimately is restored (Job style), with several philosophical digressions (some of which are very poignant for our day) and occasional poems. Plus the slightly self-involved main character who really becomes quite loveable by the end.

A pleasant read but I suspect some knowledge of social history would increase its impact.

Piper: pastoral problems and pain

2011-08-31T07:51:00.000+01:00

God has made plain to us one of the reasons for which pastors must suffer. Paul tells us in 2 COR.1:6: "If we are afflicted it is for your comfort and salvation." A sermon on this text would have as its main point: "The afflictions of the Christian minister are designed by God to achieve the comfort and salvation of his flock."

...No pastoral suffering is senseless. No pastoral pain is pointless. No adversity is absurd or meaningless. Every heartache has its divine target in the consolation of the saints, even when we feel least useful.

...2COR.1:9: "That was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead."

Piper, Brothers, p139-40

When anger sneaks up

2011-08-30T16:53:00.000+01:00

When anger is intense, we may not initially know, or even want to know, that we have become angry...It is not that we are unable to step back and consider whether we want to go along and act on our anger. Rather, we are not even aware of being angry, even though we are speaking angry words and engaging in angry actions.

Paul Ekman, Emotions Revealed, p121

Pascal: greatness and wretchedness

2011-08-30T16:46:00.000+01:00

Man's greatness is so obvious that it can even be deduced from his wretchedness, for what is nature in animals we call wretchedness in man, thus recognising that, if his nature today is like that of the animals, he must have fallen from some better state which was once his own...Man's greatness and wretchedness are so evident that the true religion must necessarily teach us that there is in man some great principle of greatness and some great principle of wretchedness. It must also account for such amazing contradictions.

quoted C John Collins, Did Adam and Eve Really Exist?, p102

Quick-review: Gladstone

2011-08-30T12:13:00.000+01:00

Gladstone, by Roy Jenkins

Several years ago I read Jenkins' Churchill, which I really enjoyed. have to say Gladstone wasn't quite so compelling. Perhaps because the grandnarrative of WWII which held anticipation throughout Churchill was absent, along side events being more distant. But also because his style seemed more verbose and smart-alec.

Even so I'm glad I pursued it (small type and many pages) to the end. Here's why:

1. So many events in his time connects with ours, sometimes creepily so: solving the "Irish problem" and dealing with terrorism; attempts to develop a 'moral' foreign policy; war in Afghanistan; balancing budgets and so on.
2. It pulled back the image of arrogant Victorian Imperialism. Whatever idea we may have of Gladstone he believed: the empire was too big to manage and British gung-ho jingoism needed to be nailed; he despised war and expansionist foreign policy; he attempted time and again (and indeed wrecked his government over the issue) to solve the humiliating mess of Ireland - and his proposals were incredibly close to what actually came to be in the 1990s. Given that he was probably the most sincerely religious PM ever, this gives the lie to Christianity driving imperialism.
3. His unstoppable energy, which only failed him in his 80s (he cut down his last tree - tree-felling being his equivalent of Churchill's brick-laying - in his early 80s) inspires to achieve more; but also reminds most of us aren't made like him with his boundless force - so maybe we should get on and do the things we always said we would, because maybe we won't be tree-felling in our 80s.

Catch the allusion

2011-08-26T16:04:00.002+01:00

Perhaps every English department should keep a Christian around just to catch Biblical allusions that his or her colleagues won't recognize.

Alan Jacobs on Text Patterns via link at Mintie's

A kink in one's theology

2011-08-24T19:49:00.000+01:00

"I hope they won't call Mr Baxter from East Grafton here, anyhow,"said Anne decidedly. "He wants the call but he does preach such gloomy sermons. Mr Bell says he's a minister of the old school, but Mrs Lynde says there's nothing whatever the matter with him but indigestion. His wife isn't a very good cook it seems, and Mrs Lynde says that when a man has to eat sour bread two weeks out of three his theology is bound to get a kink in it somewhere..."

Anne of Avonlea, by L.M. Montgomery, p203

Big Brother algorithm

2011-08-24T09:09:00.000+01:00

At last month's TEDGlobal conference, algorithm expert Kevin Slavin delivered one of the tech show's most "sit up and take notice" speeches where he warned that the "maths that computers use to decide stuff" was infiltrating every aspect of our lives.
Among the examples he cited were a robo-cleaner that maps out the best way to do housework, and the online trading algorithms that are increasingly controlling Wall Street.
"We are writing these things that we can no longer read," warned Mr Slavin.
"We've rendered something illegible. And we've lost the sense of what's actually happening in this world we've made."

BBC

Determination (again), risks and growth

2011-08-23T17:03:00.000+01:00

Growth comes when we stretch past our comfort zone. The big reason many people (especially high-achievers) plateau is because they don’t like to fail. Instead of taking on challenges that will help us grow, we stick with routines that we know we can successfully do. To protect our ego, we’d rather do the wrong things correctly, than do the right things wrongly. This aversion to risk is a recipe for plateauing.

AoM

Schaeffer: what is church for?

2011-08-11T15:04:00.001+01:00

What should the Church consciously be, then? The Church consciously (and my emphasis is very strongly on the word consciously) should be that which encourages its members in the true Christian life, in true spirituality—in that which we have set forth in this book. It should encourage them in freedom in the present life from the bonds of sin, and in freedom in the present life from the results of the bonds of sin. It should encourage substantial healing in their separation from themselves and a substantial healing in their separation from their fellowmen, especially fellow Christians.

...Each group must operate on the basis of God's individual calling for them—financially and in other matters—but there is an absolute rule, and that is that if our example does not teach faith, it is destructive. There can be many callings but there cannot be a calling to destroy the teaching of faith. The church or other Christian group that does not function as a unit in faith can never be a school of faith. There is only one way to be a school of faith and that is consciously to function by faith.

The Church or other Christian group must also teach in word the present meaning of the work of Christ. Then as a corporate body it must consciously live on this basis. It must not think that just because the Church or group is legally right, its corporate Christian life will come automatically. It never will; God does not deal with us automatically. Any Christian group must function moment by moment by conscious choice on the basis of the work of Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit, by faith.. It is not that the group just calls its individuals to so live, but that the group as a group so lives. It is death to think that things are going to come automatically just because of past legal decisions, even though they were right. There must be the present choice, a moment-by-moment choice, a conscious choice of operating on the basis of the work of Christ.

TS p148-9

...and who doesn't like them?

2011-08-10T17:07:00.000+01:00

Likewise, the age group that views evangelicals most negatively may also be counterintuitive. It turns out that it is old, not young, people who hold the strongest anti-evangelical attitudes. In 2007, when the Pew Forum released its most recent data on the question, 45 percent of non-Christian respondents ages 50 and over expressed unfavorable opinions of evangelicals. This was meaningfully higher than the 36 percent of young respondents (ages 18-29) and the 32 percent of middle-aged respondents (30-49) who said this. While popular discussion focuses on young peoples' attitudes, the story here isn't "losing the next generation" but rather "what Grandpa is cranky about now."

...
But what happens when people view their own group negatively, as many evangelicals seem to? According to Tajfel, this situation creates emotional and mental tension. Since people are driven to see themselves in a positive light, and our self-concept is tied to our group memberships, then feeling bad about our group makes us feel bad about ourselves, and something's got to give.

Tajfel identified four strategies that people use to reconcile this type of situation: (1) Work to raise the status or quality of the group to which you belong. This can take the form of protest or other collective action. (2) Hide your association with the group, so as to avoid any stigma associated with it. (3) Distance yourself from the group or leave it altogether. (4) Disengage from non-group members, spending more and more time with members of your own group, by whom you feel affirmed.

...Some evangelicals today, meanwhile, are strongly advocating that Christians reform their image in the world by acting more Christlike. No doubt we should act more Christlike, but an emphasis on "acting better" to create affinity between evangelicals and others might be misguided if that affinity already exists; it potentially overstates and even creates social barriers and conflict. Furthermore, this emphasis might actually deter evangelism, reduce commitment to Christianity, and even drive some Christians out of the faith.

CT (again)

What is an evangelical?

2011-08-10T16:54:00.000+01:00

What do people think of when they hear evangelical? Ron Sellers, president of Ellison Research, wanted to find out, so in 2008, he asked 1,007 randomly selected Americans a simple question: "In your own words, how would you define exactly what an 'evangelical Christian' is? Please be as specific and complete as you can in your answer."

In the most common response, 36 percent of the respondents reported having no idea what the term meant. This alone cautions us about relying on this label in research. Another 8 percent made a negative comment but without giving a substantive definition. The remaining answers were all over the map—including people who thought that "evangelical Christians" meant any Christian who evangelized, was devoted to their faith, was politically conservative, or relied on the Bible. In all, only a little over half of the respondents (56 percent) could offer any type of substantive definition—even a wrong one (like very strict Catholics or angel worshipers). Some of the respondents described evangelicals in harsh language, using terms such as "psychos, stupid, narrow-minded, bigots, idiots, manipulative, fanatics, and greedy." Yet some of the harshest language came from people who couldn't even define what an evangelical is—they just knew they didn't like them.

Ellison's findings harken to a classic sociological study of racial and ethnic discrimination. In the 1940s, sociologist Eugene Hartley asked college students about their attitudes toward different groups. However, his list of groups included several fictitious or otherwise unknown groups, such as the Danireans, Pirenians, and Wallonians. A good portion of the respondents reported having antipathy toward these fictitious groups. So they didn't like people who not only had they never met, but who didn't even exist.

The Books #7

2011-08-05T16:19:00.002+01:00

I am soooo far behind on this! And what's more I'm not really doing a book, but books - that is: there are a couple of people whom I have read extensively, and whilst one book on its own may not have revolutionised my life, the cumulative effect of multiple volumes over several years has been huge. So, apologies out of the way:

I know the verdict has gone from "Beware!" in reformed circles to uber-cool in recent years (ie via Keller, Piper etc) but I have been reading Lewis since...well probably early teens, well before I became a Christian. In fact, as with many, I suspect some of Narnia will have introduced ideas and concepts which later enabled resonance when reading the Bible for the first time. Verbal creation ex nihilo, substitutionary atonement, temptation, virtue...

Later, the science fiction trilogy enhanced a feel for a personal universe, good and evil, the Fall.

And then the mountains of essays. Firstly for the way they were written: clarity, precision, the mathematical dissection of the opposition's contention. If only we could all express ourselves that way. Secondly, the content: piercing, relevant, profound, memorable. And especially when communicating heaven and hell, and the profound simplicity of everyday life.

Of course the warnings about Lewis were also true: too often when encountering a problem in the Bible, he would process it via intellect much more than Scripture, and was prone to wandering off in some very odd directions.

But he could still write nonsense better than most true blue evangelicals can write truth.

And he gave me a sense of warmth in theological writing that seemed absent many other places (especially in my early days), and he said it was OK to have an imagination, and he taught me the power of story, and that the motif of redemption turns up everywhere. And, by accident, he taught me not to put my Bible down and go off on my own. And if it were not for fear of cancer, I'd probably buy a pipe too.

Instead of productivity

2011-08-04T14:56:00.000+01:00

HT (see I said it) to Minty. Comments towards the end of an article on what to do when attempts at productivity are going wrong - I put these here to remind me someone said them when I'm doing the opposite:

You could:

Re-examine your definition of productivity. Spending two hours reading a great book in a coffee shop could well be more productive than spending two hours staring at your computer screen. Taking care of your kids could be one of the most productive things you’ll do in your whole life.
Plan some down-time. Take an afternoon off – or a whole weekend. If you plan ahead, you’ll have it to look forward to (and you’re more likely to actually hold yourself to it).
Find leisure activities that you really enjoy. Sometimes, we get caught up in productivity – whether that’s at work or in the home – because we don’t really have anything else to do. Join a club, take up a new hobby, or plan a date night with your partner.
Get away from it all. It can be hard to “switch off” from work at times. By getting physically away – to a different city or even a different country – you create a real break from your regular life.

Piper: Baptism in perspective

2011-08-02T14:47:00.000+01:00

I think we need to teach our people the meaning of baptism and obey the Lord's commands to baptise converts (Matt.28:19), without elevating the doctrine to a primary one that would unduly cut us off from shared worship and ministry with others who share more important things with us.

Brothers, p135

Lucado: questions

2011-08-02T10:13:00.000+01:00

When a person first asks you a question, are they just testing to see if you can be trusted?

Yes, a person's first question isn't really the question. Their first question is kind of like tossing the tennis ball into the air. It's a practice swing. They're just testing to see if I am listening to them or not.
So I make a habit of following up the first question with a question of my own: "Can you give me an example of that? When did that last happen to you? What effect has that had on you?" When I do that, I find that I hear them better.
If I answer too quickly, my odds of providing a good answer diminish. Sometimes people don't want an answer; they just want to be heard. They just need to get something off their chests.
I heard a counselor once say, "Try to find the question behind the question." That's good advice for pastors. Even when people come at you and they're a bit antagonistic, I'll sometimes be so bold as to say, "Now, what's the question behind this question? What do you really want to talk about?"

Leadership

Schaeffer: the church exhibiting God

2011-08-01T13:49:00.000+01:00

Ever since the fall rebellious man has been this way. And the Church is called out of this humanity, in order to be humanity before a lost humanity...

It is not only that the individual should so think and live, but the whole group as a group should be attuned to living consciously, moment by moment, in the reality of the supernatural. Then there is the exhibition; then there is the result there should be.

The Church should represent the supernaturally restored human race in reality, and as such it is very obvious
that there must be the proper legal circle of those in the Church in distinction to those not in it.

The matter of the proper legal circle, the battle against false doctrine and sin, will never come to an end in this life. But the proper legal relationship, while right in itself, should be only the vestibule to the reality of a living, personal relationship, first the group with God and then between those who are in the Church. Really to glorify God, to enjoy him, and to exhibit him, can never be mechanical and can never be only legal, but personal. When the Church of Christ functions on less than the personal level, it is exhibiting less than what God is, and therefore it is less than the Church should be. There should be an exhibition of redeemed human personal relationships.

TS, p146-148

Schaeffer: divorce

2011-08-01T13:44:00.000+01:00

Modern multiple divorce is rooted in the fact that many are seeking in human relationships what human relationships can never give.

TS, p142

Schaeffer: value and apologies

2011-08-01T13:42:00.000+01:00

So it is not such a low door after all, because all it involves is being willing to admit our equality with the one we have hurt. Being his equal it is perfectly right that I should want to say, "I am sorry." Only a desire to be superior makes me afraid to confess and apologize.

If I am living in a real relationship with the Trinity, my human relationships become more important in one way, because I see the real value of man, but less important in another way because I do not need to be God in these relationships any longer. So now I can go up to a man and say, "I am sorry for such and such specific harm I have done you," without smashing the integration point of my universe, because it is no longer myself, but God.

TS, p139-40

Schaeffer: love the individual

2011-08-01T12:31:00.001+01:00

...every time I come into a place of eminence of office, I am to do it with trembling because I must understand from the word of God that eventually I will give account of my stewardship, not only in regard to my proper legal relationships but on the basis of my personal relationships.

One of the problem with humanists is that they tend to "love" humanity as a whole - Man with a capital M, man as an idea - but forget about man as individual, as a person. Christianity is not to love in abstraction, but to love the individual who stands before me in a person-to-person relationship.

TS, p138

Franzen: controllable extension of self

2011-07-29T17:03:00.002+01:00

To speak more generally, the ultimate goal of technology, the telos of techne, is to replace a natural world that's indifferent to our wishes — a world of hurricanes and hardships and breakable hearts, a world of resistance — with a world so responsive to our wishes as to be, effectively, a mere extension of the self.

NY Mag

Facebook and Guttenberg

2011-07-29T16:59:00.000+01:00

The shortcomings of social media would not bother me awfully if I did not suspect that Facebook friendship and Twitter chatter are displacing real rapport and real conversation, just as Gutenberg's device displaced remembering.

New York Magazine

Schaeffer: being right without crushing people

2011-07-27T09:14:00.000+01:00

...if we as individual Christians, and as the church, act on less than a personal relationship to other men, where is the demonstration that God our Creator is personal?

...As Christians we are not to fellowship with false doctrine. But in the midst of the very battle against false teaching, we must not forget the proper personal relationship.

In the midst of being right, if self is exalted, my fellowship with God can be destroyed...

...how careful I must be, every time I see a situation where I am right and another man is wrong, not to use it as an excuse to scramble into a superior position over that man, rather than remembering the proper relationship of fellow creatures before God.

TS, p135-136

Lewis: how to be a Knight

2011-07-22T12:30:00.002+01:00

The medieval knight brought together two things which have no natural tendency to gravitate toward one another. It brought them together for that very reason. It taught humility and forbearance to the great warrior because everyone knew by experience how much he usually needed that lesson. It demanded valour of the urbane and modest man because everyone knew that he was as likely as not to be a milksop.

Piper: repentance through beauty

2011-07-22T08:57:00.000+01:00

So preaching that aims to produce true evangelical remorse and contrition must devote itself to making God and His holiness look alluringly attractive and satisfying, so that, by the grace of regeneration and illumination, people will come to love it so much that they feel intense remorse over falling short of it. In other words, we must preach for joy in the glory of God if we would produce true grief over falling short of the glory of God. Evangelical repentance is grounded in an appealing sight of the holiness of God. That is why I say, brothers, pursue their repentance through their pleasure.

Brothers... p125

2 minutes of life

2011-07-21T16:00:00.000+01:00

Marshall Shelley's son lived for 2 minutes, and he was left asking why God would create someone who only lived that long? At the end of the article he writes:

The apostle John's vision of eternity suggests what's in store for all the saints: "The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads …. And they will reign forever and ever" (Rev. 22:3-5).
I don't know exactly what our service in that city will involve, nor can I be specific about how we will assist in reigning. But those tasks sound like they may have a bit more significance than most careers we pursue in our current lifetime.
Could it be that when I finally start the most significant service of my life, I'll find that this is what I was truly created for? I may find that the reason I was created was not for anything I accomplish on earth, but the role I'm to fulfill forever.
I realized that my earlier question had been answered.
Why did God create a child to live two minutes?
He didn't.
He didn't create Toby to live two minutes or Mandy to live two years. He didn't create me to live 40 years (or whatever number he may choose to extend my days in this world).
God created Toby for eternity. He created each of us for eternity, where we may be surprised to find our true calling, which always seemed just out of reach here on earth.

Schaeffer: how not to crush a relationship

2011-07-19T16:18:00.000+01:00

But when I am a creature in the presence of God, and I see that the last relationship is with an infinite God, and these human relationships are among equals, I can take from a human relationship what God meant it to provide, without putting the whole structure under an intolerable burden. More than this, when I acknowledge that none of us are perfect in this life, I can enjoy that which is beautiful in a relationship, without expecting it to be perfect.

But most of all, I must recognise that no human relationships are going to be finally sufficient. The finally sufficient relationship must be with God Himself.

TS, p134.

Schaeffer: legalistic, subhuman evangelism

2011-07-14T13:37:00.000+01:00

The command is to love Him, not just to think about Him or to do things for Him...Saying this we can see that much evangelism is not only sub-Christian, but subhuman - legalistic and impersonal.

TS, p133

Creative Leaders

2011-07-14T13:33:00.003+01:00

The role of a creative leader is not to have all the ideas; it’s to create a culture where everyone can have ideas and feel that they’re valued. So it’s much more about creating climates. I think it’s a big shift for a lot of people.

Ken Robinson

(pinched from Mintie; or HT; or something; HP?)

Novels satisfy spiritual hunger

2011-07-14T10:26:00.000+01:00

Rowling did not create the truth of the Eliade thesis, that novels satisfy a spiritual hunger in a secular culture. But her saga has confirmed it spectacularly. Harry Potter revealed rather than created the great spiritual hunger of our time. The publishing industry and Hollywood are responding to this by delivering stories that borrow Rowling's model. The industry simply cannot ignore the Potter-Twilight elephants in the accounting room.

Scheaffer: God's attention

2011-07-14T10:13:00.000+01:00

...because God is infinite he can deal with each one of us personally as though each one was the only man who existed...

Prayer is always to be seen as a person-to-person communication, not merely a devotional exercise. Indeed, when prayer becomes only a devotional exercise, it is no longer biblical prayer...

TS, p131 & 132

Schaeffer: a moment by moment person to person relationship

2011-07-13T17:06:00.000+01:00

If I refuse my place as creature before the Creator and do not commit myself to Him for His use, this is sin. And anything else is also misery. How can you enjoy God on any other level than what you are, and in this present situation? Anything else will bring misery, a torturing of the poor, divided personality we are since the Fall. To live moment by moment through faith on the basis of the blood of Christ, in the power of the Holy Spirit is the only really integrated way to live. This is the only way to be at rest with myself, for only in this way am I not trying to carry what I cannot. To do otherwise is to throw away my own place of rest, the substantial psychological advance I as a Christian can have in this present life.

But present communion with God requires bowing in both the intellect and the will. Without bowing in the intellect, in thinking after God; without acting on the finished work of Christ in my present life; and without bowing in the will in practice, as the waves of the present life break over me, there is no sufficient communion with God. Without these things I am not in my place as the creature in a fallen and abnormal world. These three things are absolutely necessary if there is to be real and sufficient communion with God in the present life. In the proportion that these things are so, then a person-to-person relationship to God is in place...

TS, pp.129&130

Schaeffer: one integration point

2011-07-13T08:03:00.000+01:00

The integration point is God Himself. It is possible even for Christians to put always more intellectual questions between them and the reality of communion with God. Even right doctrine can be the false integration point...

...And almost all modern liberal theology is just a game; it is pure gamesmanship...

TS, pp127-128

Schaeffer: a new start, integration, encompassing relationship

2011-07-11T21:31:00.000+01:00

There is always the possibility of a truly new start within a totally rational framework. Thank God that there is always this possibility, upon the basis of the infinite value of the blood of Jesus Christ...

...When by the grace of God I think after God, I can have intellectual integration. I no longer have to play games of hide and seek with the facts that I dare not face...

And nothing less will integrate the whole me, because that is what I was made for: to love God with all my heart, soul, mind. Being in any other relationship is not enough. There are parts of me that are not encompassed by any other relationship.

TS, p126.

Schaeffer: we know what we are so no need for superiority or inferiority

2011-07-11T21:26:00.000+01:00

...another area of conflict and tension: the area of feelings of superiority and inferiority in relationship to other people. Many of us move backwards and forwards between superiority and inferiority , almost like the swing of a pendulum...

...As a Christian I do not have to find my validity in my status, or by thinking myself above other men. My validity and my status are found in being before the God who is there...I can deal with them without fearing that if I limit my superiority, my value, my validity, and status will be totally lost...

...I know who I am. I am a creature. I see myself in the light of having been created by God and in the light of the true , historic fall. So I understand that this is what I am and what all other men are.

TS, pp125&126

Schaeffer: fear of the impersonal

2011-07-11T21:21:00.000+01:00

But the solution for the Christian is that there never need be a fear of the impersonal, because the personal-infinite God is really there...

..."you do not have to be afraid because God is here." This is a profound truth, not just for children. Indeed it is the glory of the Christian faith that the little things are profound and the profound things are overwhelmingly simple.

TS, p123

Schaeffer: trying to carry the world

2011-07-11T21:18:00.000+01:00

The basic psychological problem is trying to be what we are not, and trying to carry what we cannot carry. Most of all, is not being willing to be the creatures we are before the Creator...there is nothing complicated about it; he is squashed trying to bear what no one except God Himself can bear because only God is infinite...

...Since the Fall we have points of weakness. With some of us it tends to be physical; with some it tends to be psychological. If we carry what we cannot, the blowout will come and it will come at the place of our inherent weakness...We refuse to acknowledge the existence of God, or - even though acknowledging his existence intellectually - in practice we refuse to bow before Him in the midst of our moment by moment lives.

TS, p122

Schaeffer: avoiding psychological despair and smashed marriages

2011-07-11T17:41:00.001+01:00

...we lose the 'substantially' [substantial healing] in beating ourselves to bits trying to be what we cannot be...I am not to set myself at the centre of the universe and insist that everything bend to the standards that I have set upon my own superiority. I am not to say "I must be thus," and if it is not thus, there is nothing but psychological despair. Some people are totally caught in this, but all of us have something of it within ourselves, swinging pendulum-like between conceit and despair.

This is not true only in the psychological area, of course; it is true in all relationships of life...married couples who refuse to have what they can have , because they have set for themselves a false standard of superiority. They have set up a romanticism, either on the romantic side of love or the physical side, and if their marriage does not measure up to their own standards of superiority, they smash everything to the ground...You suddenly see a marriage smashed - everything gone to bits, people walking away from each other, destroying something really beautiful and possible...

TS, p120

Schaeffer: real and psychological guilt

2011-07-11T13:21:00.000+01:00

Then it is reasonably, truly, and objectively dealt with in Christ's infinite substitutionary work. Now I can say to my conscience, "Be still!" The real guilt is gone and I know that anything that is left is my psychological guilt. This can be faced, not i confusion, but to be seen as part of the misery of fallen man...

A very practical thing for ourselves and for those whom we would help is that it is not always possible to sort out true guilt from psychological guilt...When someone comes to you in a psychological storm, and he is really torn up, it is not only unreasonable but it is also cruel to ask him in every case to sort out what is true guilt and what is psychological guilt...

...My part is to function in what which is above the surface, and to ask God to help me to be honest. My part is to cry to God for the part of the iceberg that is above the surface and confess whatever I know is true guilt there, bringing it under the infinite, finished work of Jesus Christ...

TS pp115-117

Schaeffer: acting like God is there

2011-07-11T13:15:00.000+01:00

How is it that psychologists who act as if God is there, but merely pragmatically, like Carl Gustav Jung, are able to help their patients to some degree? I think it is because that which really helps is always in the direction of what reality is...Not bowing, they do not acknowledge Him, and yet pragmatically they find they must act as if He is there.

TS, p115

Schaeffer: battle

2011-07-08T14:05:00.000+01:00

True doctrine is an idea revealed by God in the Bible...and can be fed back through man's body into his thought-world and there acted upon. the battle for man is centrally in the world of thought...the spiritual battle, the loss of victory, is always in the thought-world.

TS, p108.

Schaeffer: communion is internal

2011-07-08T14:03:00.000+01:00

...we must understand that the reality of communion with God, and loving God, must take place in the inward self...Even communication with men and women must be through the body into the area of the thought-world...a real, personal communication never remains external. It always goes back into the personality...Thus real communication with man and love of man centres in our thought-world. The results may be external, and the expression may be external, but the love is internal. the same is true in our love for God...

the facts of the gospel in the external world [are] carried through the medium of his body into the inner world of his thoughts, and there, inside himself, inside his thought-world, either his believing God on the basis of the content of the gospel or his calling God a liar....

TS, p106

Schaeffer: internal & external greatness & awfullness

2011-07-08T13:54:00.001+01:00

So this is where true spirituality in the Christian life rests: in the realm of my thought-life...

...the reverse of this: the blows of the battle from the external world of man fall upon me outwardly. The blows fall in many ways...All of them come upon me in the external world, but if they stayed in the external world of the body, as though it were a machine, they would being no tears to me. Instead they flow through my sense, my body, into that which I am in the thought-world. And as the blows come to my thought-world, I either say "Thank you" to God, as we have already considered, or I rebel against Him. In either case the result is soon seen in the external world...

...That is even after I am a Christian I can be a death-producing machine; though I have life, eternal life, if I yield myself to Satan instead of to Christ, I can be an instrument of death to this external world. How sublime to be a man, made in the image of God! But how sobering, that I can bring forth out of my thought-world into the external world either that which leads to life or that which produces death in other men.

TS, pp106-107