Blogging or Globbing?

I developed early on a sort of unspoken rule that I would not spend too much time blogging about blogging, as it seemed to me a rather circular endeavor. Besides, I'm largely unqualified to sermonize on the subject, being somewhat of a muddled milksop when it comes to cybernetics. But never mind; just think of this post as "Mr. Bean goes to Blogville."

I am thoroughly fascinated with blogging as a both personal and information-rich medium. There is a staggering quantity of ideas, news, and research that is available to anyone, anytime. I am starting to feel that this budding technology, for all it's flukes and flaws, will be playing a significant role in the immediate future of Christianity.

About a week ago I was invited to join Christian Bloggers. Whether they found me by pure accident or were tipped off, it earned me another button on the sidebar and possibly a few more daily hits, (not that either has any meaning). This network stops far short of embodying what I see as the medium's Kingdom potential, but it appears to be hardboiled and harmless. (If you happen to be interested, it is simple to join on your own initiative.)

In the reading department, I recently plowed through BLOG to try to bring myself up to speed a little and stop blogging by torchlight. Written by Hugh Hewitt, a Christian radio talk show host and blogger, the book describes how the blogosphere is dismantling the Mainstream Media monopoly on information, and describes some statistics and stories that are quite interesting.

According to BLOG, a full two-thirds of blogs that are started are ultimately deserted by their bloggers: the average abandoned blog lasts about four months before trailing off into the cold oblivion of outer-cyberspace. I guess that means I am either safely out of danger or inescapably hooked.

The book has a decided political emphasis, and commercialized blogging is preached as a matter of course. For myself, I can't help but hope that there remains a remnant who see advertising as the distasteful distraction it is. Blogging may be a marvelous tool, but much of it remains grossly and unquestionably materialistic.

The Economist has some interesting things to say about Web 2.0, the budding internet standard devoted to new media such as blogs and podcasts. (Speaking of the Economist, you may want to check out this recent article from Mercator.net about the magazine. I don't agree with all of Mercator's conclusions, but it's an informative third-party overview nonetheless.)

As I have intimated in previous posts, the whole affair is a good bit trickier than it looks. There is a fine line between blogging and globbing. Mud is easy to find. Diamonds are not.


Image courtesy of hovedetpaabloggen.dk

Heaven and Hell

A month ago I promised to examine the subject of Heaven and Hell a little closer. Since then, courtesy of Garrett, I had the chance to read C. S. Lewis's The Screwtape Letters, in which a senior devil coaches a young apprentice through the finer points of sophism and chicane. (The book reads rather uncomfortably, for two reasons: firstly, it is properly uncomfortable to be thinking in the devil's shoes, and secondly, it gradually occurs to you that he is watching you too.) I guess you could say I've had the benefit recently of viewing the topic from several angles.

Note: In the interest of brevity we will take for granted here that Heaven and Hell are valid realities.

We're all familiar with "fire insurance" Christianity, (that shallow nonsense preached by all those "cheap Christians",) but I doubt we're aware of how deeply this cancer has penetrated our own thinking. Present-day society has infected Christianity with a preoccupation around m-e. We have found the sickness difficult to be rid of, so we conveniently spiritualized it, and wound up with a cute little creed that "gets you into Heaven."

Don't let anyone tell you the Bible is simple. It is not. Even Peter described the writings of Paul as "hard to understand," and we do well to approach the word of God with reverence and respect. And it's not bad to be plain puzzled once in awhile.

For some time I was roundly stumped by a few particularly thorny verses. Listen to Moses, in Exodus 32:32, pleading with God for the children of Israel: "Yet now, if thou wilt forgive their sin--; and if not, blot me, I pray thee, out of thy book which thou hast written." Paul echoed a similar sentiment in Romans 9:3: "For I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh."

Now those to me seemed to be some the most reckless, ridiculous statements in the whole of scripture. That they were made by devout, sincere men only further baffles the enigma. What gives?

Somewhere along the line, we have purchased this idea that Christianity exists mainly for my own personal comfort, I mean, (ahem!) my own eternal destiny. This rhetoric sounds very slick and spiritual until we notice God standing there shaking his finger and saying to us, like a parent to a selfish child, "Now who are you thinking about?"

As Lewis points out, we are working the problem the wrong way around. (If you didn't read this excerpt from Reflections on the Psalms, you should do so.) Too many of us are devoted to ourselves, and too many of the rest of us are devoted to God for ourselves. It is severely difficult to just be devoted to God.


Image courtesy of bamjam.net

World War II: Deeper Perspectives

Os Guinness inspired me to cram some history into my reading schedule, so I turned to two book-sale acquisitions covering the second world war.

A Quiet American chronicles the life of Varian Fry, an American who traveled to unoccupied France and set up an underground immigration network for refugees who were in political danger as intellectuals, artists, or writers. Over the course of a year, he helped many now-famed personages evade the clutches of the Gestapo and reach Ellis Island. (Incidentally, I just found Lion Feuchtwanger's Proud Destiny in a local book nook.)

Replete with forged passports, money from the black market, and boldfaced lies, Fry's operation raises all sorts of knotty ethical questions. The author is predictably sympathetic to Fry and his tactics, and draws you into the urgency of the moment, as the ebb and flow of French patriotism surges around you and the world wakes up to the harsh reality of world war.

These questions run much deeper than multiple-choice mathematics. Even the mild Dietrich Bonhoeffer snapped when confronted with the stark horror of Nazi brutality, joining the July 20 plotters in their unsuccessful attempt to assassinate Hitler. In Fry's case, he based his network on entirely secular morals, and it seems his work is properly applauded as a triumph for the cause of secular freedom.

Last Words, "A Memoir of World War II and the Yugoslav Tragedy," recounts the experiences of Yugoslav POW Boris Todorovich, who escaped a German concentration camp to eventually rejoin the Yugoslav resistance forces. Composed of numerous ethnicities, Yugoslavia was ruptured in several directions by the war. The Croats defected to the Germans, turning in Serbs as prisoners or worse, and the Serbs were divided into two parties: the Communists, led by Josip Tito, and the Chetniks, led by Draža Mihailović.

Todorovich, a passionate nationalist and freedom fighter, identified strongly with the latter group. Unfortunately, since the Communists struck more effective blows against the Germans early on, they became the de facto recipients of Allied aid, which they used to vanquish their rival party. Mihailović was eventually executed by Tito's Communist regime.

Being an autobiographical account, certain pieces are undoubtedly skewed to fit Todorovich's ego and ethics, and the narrative lacks the usefully critical commentary of an outsider. There is, however, value in the firsthand, and the book offers a singularly cutting perspective in that the story does not end well.

Thinking About Originality

If you've known me (or read my blog) for any length of time you know I have a bad case of broken-record syndrome. I like books. I like dismantling society. I like Rich Mullins.

It doesn't help that my vocabulary tends to run in circles. I like vague, squishy words such as beauty, or truth, or real. I teeter between the poetically profound and the peculiarly preposterous. (And I suppose I should admit an alliteration addiction, as well.)

My number one writing aid? Thesaurus.com, by an embarrassingly wide margin. Secret of the just-add-water pundit? None other than the venerable and indispensable Wikipedia.

Really, to be shallow is no crime. Oswald Chambers put it well on the 22nd: even the ocean has a shore. (Sometimes, of course, we may need to verify whether the shore has an ocean.)

Sometimes I think the reader's patience must be the eighth wonder of the world. There is certainly plenty of typographical turbulence around here. It must be supremely frustrating to be bored as bananas one day and startled out of your skin the next. To simply be interesting is not as easy as it sounds. And as for originality, forget it. There's nothing new under the sun, and no one knows it better than the pioneer. (Not to mention the large degree of mutual exclusivity between education and originality.)

But we don't appreciate people primarily for being original; we appreciate them for being themselves. We love the baker, not because he is always busy mixing up some new recipe, but simply because he makes really good bread.

The "I" in iPod

Progress is not truly progress solely because it is labeled so. What looks to be a new standard of freedom may often be nothing more than a new standard of sterility.

The ipod may be one example. It is now possible to carry 1,000 songs around in your pocket like a pack of gum, redefining "music to-go." And so we have this sort of mini-revolution in the realm of personal audio. Everywhere you go you see folks with the telltale white cords hanging out of their ears, enjoying - or enduring - their own private concert.

I'm trying to get used to it, and I'm not sure it's working. I feel like I'm crowded into my own little world - the music is all cramped up, and so am I. With an ipod, you no longer feel inclined to roll the windows down for that really good song, and it's putting me a little out of sorts.

Music is meant to be shared. It's meant to float out into the open air (within the constraints of consideration, of course,) where it can reign free in the auditory atmosphere. You can't sing along with an ipod without sounding stupid; even tapping your foot is bound to earn you a quizzical stare. No: now music, along with everything else, must be all business.

But this is a travesty, and here's why: music is meant to be absorbing. It's meant to lift you up, to be something that is simultaneously, gloriously, wholly connected to life and yet wholly other. (It may be significant to some that, in heaven, we "sing" the "song" of the Lamb. Why couldn't we just recite a eulogy?) But in the new world-to-myself mania, music is in danger of becoming just another boring backdrop, drumming along in the borders of your consciousness like a squeaky shopping cart. Rock 'n' dull.

So, as much as I treasure the space between my ears, ultimately I desire that my world would outgrow the confines of that narrow spread. God calls the very mountains to sing - to send the crashing crescendos of redemption echoing through the cosmos. That tells me we ought to take the lid off: as Steven Curtis Chapman put it, "Live out loud."

The Last Honest Holiday

Thanksgiving is the one secular holiday I can celebrate without scruples; free of the commercialization of Christmas, the obscenity of Halloween, the absurdity of Easter, or the uncomfortable patriotism of The Fourth of July.

Besides, I really like cranberries.

The Definitive Orthodoxy

I have completed my upside-down exploration of the authoritative Chesterton trilogy, consisting of The Everlasting Man, St. Francis of Assisi, and now, Orthodoxy.

It is rather intimidating to approach a book that has attained nearly mythical status. These days it seems that if you want your work to be taken seriously, you must include the obligatory quote from Chesterton, and this is hard to do without casting a pallid gray shadow over your own writing.

Because of this, it's the kind of déjà vu classic that continually stirs your consciousness with remotely familiar passages, like driving through the shaded streets of a town you have never been in but many people have told you about.

I was not disappointed. The work is deserving of its decorations: in the awed words of the Queen of Sheba, "The half was not told me." I just love the way authors like Lewis or Chesterton sneak Christianity up on you, skillfully presenting it as the surprising, satisfying thing that it properly is.

This is Chesterton's Mere Christianity; likely his most fundamental work, certainly his most formidable: a crashing coup d'etat of the sour skeptics. In a healthy but reasonable 170 pages, He embarks on a wild romp through doctrine and discovery, taking the Apostles' Creed as a sort of loose outline. His enthusiasm for life is unmistakable, converting one's anxious prejudices almost immediately.

A work of this impregnable proportion is difficult to criticize, and it is with fear and trembling that I suggest an oversight. It seems that Chesterton, in his zeal for provocative paradoxes, has overlooked the essentially nonviolent nature of Christianity. He appears to have accepted and even defended the legacy of the Church Militant, which I find extraordinarily difficult to do with a clear conscience. It is not enough for this history to be dusted off and propped up; it must be repudiated. For myself, I see nothing unorthodox about representing the Inquisition or the Crusades as colossal mistakes.

Foibles aside, this masterpiece has earned its place in the list of required reading for the conscientious Christian. But perhaps "required" is the wrong word; "rewarding" may be more appropriate.

"Whenever we feel there is something odd in Christian theology, we shall generally find that there is something odd in the truth." - Chapter VI, The Paradoxes of Christianity


Image courtesy of stfrancisonline.com

Postscript on Friedman

While it may seem rather morbid, it is nevertheless a truism to say that death often constitutes one's crowning contribution to mortal society. (Take Jesus, or Samson, for instance.) You just aren't around to observe the fallout.

This obituary from the Economist chronicles some of Friedman's stands and successes, and provides a nice biographical sketch. Friedman authored several books which have quickly become classics in economic literature: Capitalism and Freedom, Free To Choose (with his wife), and Monetary History of the United States (with Anna Schwartz). He appeared last year on Charlie Rose; and it is inspiring to watch him, at 93, reflect on the meaning of his life and existence in general. He comments sagaciously on historical events and personages, current trends, the replacement of Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan with Ben Benanke, and the state of the international economy. Fascinating in the highest degree.

Economics and Excuses

The purpose of the post is two-fold. I must attempt to dispel some misunderstandings which could potentially arise around my adventurous post on the evils of television. I would also like to comment on the recent death of an eminent economist who has just finished making history.

Milton Friedman, who died of heart failure earlier today in Southern California, was a brilliant economic thinker who argued for small government, individual responsibility, and common sense. Born in New York City in 1912 to Jewish parents, Friedman weathered the depression and went on to become an icon in socio-economic circles, reviving the rich legacy of classical liberalism for the 20th century. (This revival is credited jointly to Friedman and F. A. Hayek, whose book The Road To Serfdom is probably the best discussion of government theory that I have ever read.)

Friedman generally identified himself as a classical liberal, although he self-deprecatingly minimized the issue: "I don't really care very much what I'm called. I'm much more interested in having people thinking about the ideas, rather than the person." Today a lot of people are thinking about the person; I'm sure Friedman would be hopeful that this will lead them to examine the ideas.

(For those of you who are, like me, compulsively interested in these things, there is a tidy collection of Friedmanism in this post. You may also enjoy this charming, vintage interview in which Friedman brilliantly discusses minimum wage, social security, and limited government. Being a working man with a Schedule C, the lucid genius of it all almost makes me want to vote.)

But wait a minute. Was that last item a link to a video? What new standard of inconsistency is this?

Now for the excuses part. While I do not flinch at the prospect of a world without video, I am not prepared to argue, as Mander does, for the complete elimination of the medium. I distrust it, and distrust it broadly, but I must retain a place, however small, for the useful recording and retrieval of knowledge that televised technology has made possible.

Qualifications are boring, but they are preferable to the alternative. Thanks for your patience.


Image courtesy of wikipedia.com

Smashing Televisions

It may be prudent to provide some clarification concerning a little piece of information in my profile, which cites "smashing televisions" as one of my "interests." This may seem somewhat out of character, considering the non-violent type of person that I am (or attempt to be). Let me provide some background.

Growing up, we often watched television while sick. This means that, for me, the medium carries some unfavorable associations: watching television was something you did with a large, ominously empty plastic bowl next to you.

This deep-seated distaste has now festered into something rather formidable. Some would say I have blamed a disproportionate number of the world's ills on the unfortunate tube. I'm not convinced. Simultaneously stimulating and stupefying, television seems to me to border on the hypnotic, which should at least brand it as incredibly dangerous, if not downright deadly.

Jerry Mander, in his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, (which is sitting patiently on my bookshelf,) agrees. This cursory review from TurnOfYourTV.com is a worthwhile essay in its own right and touches on many of the more salient points of the issue.

Working on a trash-hauling job with my brother a few weeks ago, I was powerless to resist the urge to plunge a 2x4 through the blank screen of a doomed television monitor. Besides the sweet, momentary indulgence of the male thirst for destruction, it provided an outlet for my increasing frustration with this devilish device that has all but bewitched western humanity.

But rest assured: as of yet I still respect other people's property, so you needn't hide away your television if I'm coming to dinner. Only please do not invite me over for football or Peter Pan, as I may find it necessary to respectfully decline.


Image courtesy of drabbytux.com

Beauty or Babel?

"Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgment." - Ecclesiastes 11:9

Emerging from adolescence may well be the pinnacle of existence, as all the things you thought you had to prove begin to fade away, and you are free and fresh to pursue the wonder that is life. As intimated above, this idea may not be wholly unbiblical.

The tireless force of maturity continually refines our awareness of both self and surroundings. Beauty is truth, truth is beauty, and discovery is the regnant theme - the watchword of the brightening dawn. And the train gathers reckless speed.

This rushing wind has been breathed by God Himself; He is the headwaters of this deliciously drenching torrent of truth. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights..." (James 1:17) The understanding opens, words falter, and the heart leaps for joy.

But for the catapult to be effective it must be aimed. It is desirable that youth be found sober, discreet, self-controlled, centered, purposed. "Remember now thy Creator in the days of thy youth," is more than pithy advice: it is the path of life. For there is a distinct danger that the heart may become enraptured by its own reflection, which danger is only intensified in this age of personalization and individuality, where the tendency is for man to create God in his own image.

It is not sinful for a flower to open, it is only sinful for it to congratulate itself for such talent, flattered by its own finesse. The Gift and gifts of life are tokens from God of His bottomless love, and we thrive in the delight to the extent that we glory in the source. "Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall: but they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." (Isaiah 40:30-31)

That original sin still haunts us: the reaching for the self-contained knowledge of good and evil and the implicit rivalry of God. And this is the danger, namely, that our very passion for the real will prove once again to be our undoing.

Will your bricks and mortar be a temple for the living God, or a Babel of self-serving egoism?

November Sky

It's a full moon over California

Orion's shining in the autumn sky

The night so cold, and yet so intimate

I can't explain it so I just won't try




Image courtesy of flickr.com

Caedmon's Call

A few months ago, on a whim, I decided to check out the relatively obscure Christian band Caedmon's Call. A college-oriented group, they take their name from the 7th-century English poet Caedmon, and their music has a very metaphoric, poetic flavor. There is a richness and depth to the songs that is refreshing.

It's hard to decide what is most impressive about Caedmon's Call: the songwriting or the delivery. They seem to take music, and life in general, seriously, and it shows. Almost all of the earlier songs came from Aaron Tate and Derek Webb, who both possess exceptional songcrafting ability, especially Tate. Today, most of the writing is done by Josh Moore, Randall Goodgame, and Andrew Osenga.

One unique thing about Caedmon's is the way they share the stage; they are a team, and they act like one. They have always had three singers capable of holding their own (Cliff and Danielle Young, and Andrew Osenga, who replaced Derek Webb in 2004); lead vocals on their albums tend to be split in more or less equal thirds. The others in the band, Todd on drums, Garrett on percussion, Jeff on bass, and Josh on everything else, are essential to achieving the coherent, quality sound that is Caedmon's Call.

In 2004, the band took an international tour and produced an album highlighting the ministries of Compassion International and The Dalit Freedom Network. Share the Well has a very ethnic sound: a number of the songs were actually recorded in the field with local musicians. The result is pretty powerful.

When something captures me like this, I tend to be rather headlong about it. I haven't been as excited about music since discovering Rich Mullins (who was also very involved with Compassion) two and a half years ago. So I round up the complete discography and learn the songs forwards and backwards, loving every minute of it.


Now that this is all ending / I wanna hear some music once again / 'cause it's the finest thing / I have ever found - Rich Mullins

Art and Appreciation

There is no art that does not first appreciate. Art may be born in the afterthought, but never in the flippant or the unaware. It is a necessary antecedent of the artistic to be, in the truest sense, awake.

I have often wondered if it is really possible to teach appreciation as a subject, like geometry or grammar. In most areas of knowledge or art, honest study or sympathetic exposure should be enough to kindle a warm appreciation, if arising only from the sense of having invested a part of yourself in something. (Most of us do not find it particularly difficult to appreciate ourselves.) But to present it as a costume or a pill is to cheapen the rugged authenticity of the thing. It may be encouraged, it may be contagiously developed through exposure, but it cannot be taught, and it certainly cannot be tested.

For it is not about appreciating a certain predetermined set of things - abject veneration of civilization's laundry list of "classics" is hardly virtuous. It is not a crime to remain unmoved by Mozart or Mona Lisa; indeed, a certain measure of autonomy is healthy in that it may protect us from the frequent hubbub over the emperor's new clothes.

You will notice that art, or most art that is worth anything anyway, is by and by submitted to a sort of gauntlet, undergoing close scrutiny from any number of distinguished authorities who judge its relative merit or mediocrity. We call these folks critics. They seem to be of a different ilk than the artists; rarely do they coexist in the same personage. (This could be why my head hurts as it does.) But this begs the question: have we produced a society where those who can, create, and those who can't, critique?

Pablo Picasso said that "Good taste is the enemy of great art," and this may very well be true, to the extent that good taste is taken to mean political correctness. (I would prefer that good taste retain its innocent imagery a little while longer.) For art necessarily deals with the sensitive, and political correctness has no time or capacity for probing the deeper reaches of things. Art is made out on a limb, where the view is better.

I am currently reading a book depicting the disintegration of Europe under the crushing weight of Nazism. Artists, poets, and writers, as political threats, were systematically hunted. It is revealing to observe that the artists, as a unit, represented that strain of secular man that is, on the whole, liberal and sane, comfortable with fair play and unanswered questions. The Gestapo, on the other hand, held the ethical convictions of a pack of dogs, with no respect for life, let alone appreciation or even patience for the thoughtful, aesthetic work of their intellectual betters.

G. K. Chesterton said that "Art is the signature of man." Perhaps we could add that contempt is the characteristic of the criminal.


Image courtesy of prechtelfineart.com

As The Sparks Fly

"Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward." - Job 5:7

I never really understood this wisdom from the book of Job until studying a campfire earlier this year, observing that the life expectancy of an upward-bound spark is not lengthy. Sooner or later, usually sooner, the cold darkness strangles the feeble glimmer of light: mute, astonishing testimony to the brute power of the void we find ourselves in.

Sparks do not burn on their own, they merely absorb and radiate the energy of their fiery origin. Created in the image of God, we retain within the very fabric of our fragility the light of the divine. (John 1:9, 2 Corinthians 4:7) But it is only an infinitesimal sliver of the blazing bonfire that is God.

(We too often underestimate the dramatic nature of the incarnation: the frank condescension of Phillipians 2. God "in the likeness of men," stripped of his rank and radiance, criticized and crucified by his own. As Lewis put it, "If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug or a crab.")

So here we are, barely. The Biblical view of existence is not particularly flattering: a vapor, a vanity, a passing wind. It gives a whole new meaning to "this little light of mine."



Image courtesy of Jesse T.