Tuesday, March 31, 2020
But it's in the plural…
Love broke through!
We can now see two revelations working together whenever God is being revealed and understood. There is Jesus, and there is the Spirit. These two figures operate like the two hands of God gathering people up and bringing them back to the Father. Presumably this is what happened to Paul near Damascus as well. He was touched by both the Lord Jesus and by God’s Spirit.
These claims can frustrate modern historians who like to build pictures of people out of the factors that shaped them as children and young adults—their families, early childhood homes, cultures, and so on—and explain their subsequent behavior in the light of those influences. What happened to Paul earlier on that made him convert in this astonishing way? But this assumes that the most important factors in history are things that take place within history, where we can see them—things like sociological and psychological factors. This would miss the point of what Paul tells us. He says that the most important factors in history come from outside of it, from God. He goes out of his way in his longest account of this event, in his letter to Galatians, to emphasize that whatever his background was, whatever the preceding factors, they didn’t matter that much. He was a learned Jew, he says in Galatians 1:14, and so dedicated, he says in the previous verse, that he was persecuting religious deviants. But he was heading in the completely wrong direction and God changed him by breaking into his life, the chapter continues. It was a surprise, a shock, a sudden about-face. Conventional historical analysis couldn’t predict this and can’t explain it. It can only be explained by divine revelation—and this applies just as much to Christians today. Christians believe that Jesus is Lord (God), because God has revealed this to us through God’s Spirit.—Paul: An Apostle’s Journey, 17–18
Monday, March 30, 2020
Swearing an oath
And we are that image
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That's the end of this book. Hope you enjoyed it. Next up, we'll move to the New Testament for a bit.
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Sunday, March 29, 2020
Is it Sunday again already?
I've found that the Atlantic seems to have some pretty balanced reporting. Here's a sampling: How the Coronavirus Became an American Catastrophe; How the Pandemic Will End (pretty sobering); and The President Is Trapped. And this on BBC is worth the read, too.
And then there are those who look to past plagues, which typically were much worse as far as death tolls go, to see how people responded. Andy LePeau looks at the 165 CE plague; Philip Jenkins relates the story of Eyam, which I had never heard of before. A very nice illustration of sacrificing self-interest for the sake of others.
Which brings us to the most controversial aspect of the pandemic: the economic one. Religion Dispatches' headline, "‘Restart the Economy’ Is a Prayer to a Conservative God Who Demands Human Sacrifice," is chilling, to put it mildly. And The Week's opinion piece, "A pro-lifer shrugs in the face of mass death" is just the tip of the iceberg over Reno's First Things editorial. As Benjamin Corey's blog post says, "It’s Not Pro-Life If You’re Going to Sacrifice the Old Folks."
Roger Olson, though, takes a broader theological approach:
Novelist Kurt Vonnegut famously said “We’re terrible animals. I think that the Earth’s immune system is trying to get rid of us, as well it should.” (I am not going to get into a debate with anyone here about whether Vonnegut really meant it or what. The statement here stands on its own because I agree with it—unless there is a God or something like God as I will explain.)He goes on to explain what he means. And Scot McKnight asks "God and the Virus: Do we say God sent the virus?" Ken Schenk takes on the question "Is COVID-19 God's Judgment?" Read it to find out what he says.
Related, but not directly, Roger Olson again. This time he makes an important distinction between "The 'Ultimate' and the 'Penultimate': An Important Distinction in Christian Ethics." Good stuff; read it.
OK, enough of that. If you are still with me, take a look at this piece about the danger of smoothing out the differences in middle America, the "fly-over country" that I call home.
Most of all, pop culture normalizes the region: Think about how differently we would read the myth of Superman if his ship crashed in rural Connecticut, or how Fargo loses its irony (and everything else) if reimagined in Fargo, Arkansas. It must be Kansas that Dorothy returns to, not Schenectady or Dallas.Read the rest. Meanwhile, Michael Bird takes on the Biblical Manhood people in his post entitled "Imitation of Christ vs. Gender Roles."Anytime a region this large, this diverse, and this hard to define becomes a symbol for a concept that has the combined vagueness and life-regulating power of “normalcy,” it should tell us that we’re in the presence of myth. In its worst form, the association between Midwesternness and normalcy can become a proxy for whiteness, straightness, and/or maleness. There are people in the world who think that our outer-borough, rich-guy, New Yorker president better represents the Midwest than does Ilhan Omar, a Somali immigrant elected in 2018 to the House of Representatives from Minnesota, where she has lived for more than 20 years. This kind of thinking legitimizes prejudice while obscuring the region’s actual demographics, which are all over the place.
That about does it this week. Be wise, but not fearful. Radiate the love of Christ, not the blaming too often displayed by some in power. This isn't the first, nor is it the worst, pandemic in history. Yes, I know, that doesn't make it any easier, but putting it into perspective can be helpful. Valete!
Friday, March 27, 2020
Are you against socialism?
Remember that the next time you complain about SNAP/food stamps, welfare, unemployment insurance, and those "lazy bums" who get government aid. This time, you are the lazy bum.
For a much better way of saying it, read this post. Here's a snippet:
Who would have thought that during an election year which was expected to be spent by republicans flogging anything that smelled of socialism or big government, that we’d find them so enthusiastically embracing it… at the hands of Trump, no less?Read it all, and ponder it. And then read the New Testament book of James, especially chapter 2. Of course, it wouldn't hurt you to read a bit of Matthew 25:31–46.Goodbye days of, “Trump is gonna stop those stupid socialist libs from getting power and ruining the country by handing money out to people.”
Hello unexpected era of, “OMG, thank you Trump. When does my check come??” (emphasis original)
Just an
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Hey, you! Can I borrow your god for a bit?
Marred, not removed
Thursday, March 26, 2020
But what about those other gods?
Much more than sin
Wednesday, March 25, 2020
The Queen of Heaven
What is this imago dei anyway?
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Really?
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Wow. Where do I begin? That description paints with far too wide a brush! Maybe coming from his background that's how things were, but coming from a Wesleyan background with a healthy dose of social justice and having grown up in the woods, that just doesn't ring true at all.
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Come on down!
Monday, March 23, 2020
A bit of good news for a change
The virus can grow exponentially only when it is undetected and no one is acting to control it, Levitt said. That’s what happened in South Korea, when it ripped through a closed-off cult that refused to report the illness.<idle musing>“People need to be considered heroes for announcing they have this virus,” he said.
The goal needs to be better early detection — not just through testing but perhaps with body temperature surveillance, which China is implementing — and immediate social isolation.
While the COVID-19 fatality rate appears to be significantly higher than that of the flu, Levitt says it is quite simply put, “not the end of the world.”
Based on the experience of the Diamond Princess, he estimates that being exposed to the new coronavirus doubles a person’s risk of dying in the next two months. However, most people have an extremely low risk of death in a two-month period, and that risk remains extremely low even when doubled.
So, keep your social distance and don't panic.
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And the bottom line was blessing
Low-functioning creatures
Sunday, March 22, 2020
And it's Sunday again
I shall be fairly forthright here. Here is a profile of the forger: I believe that the forger of these Dead Sea Scrolls forged fragments is a trained scholar in our field, with access to actual ancient scrolls. I believe that the forger forged them during the course of a few months, or more likely, a couple years (this also accounts for some of the variation in the script). I believe that venality (indeed, outright and blatant greed) is a primary motivation (literally, netting the forger millions of dollars for these Museum of the Bible forgeries), but greed is not the only motivation. I believe the scholar of these forgeries is particularly hubristic, and assumed he (or she) could fool all other scholars (and also probably delighted in this assumption). I do not think that these were forged as some sort of a joke (as was the case in the Coleman-Norton forgery and in the case of the Hebron Philistine Documents). Clearly, I believe that the forger is amoral. Also, I believe that the forger worked primarily alone, but could have included a paid friend or associate who had at least a high-school level knowledge of chemistry (these forgeries are not sophisticated enough to have included the assistance of a trained scholar in chemistry).Sobering, isn't it? Wouldn't be the first time that's been true. Meanwhile, Sidnie White Crawford, who has probably spent more time among the physical scrolls than just about anyone alive, chimed in with her paper. Her conclusion? Yep, they're fakes.
In other non-COVID-19 posts, Roger Olson asks whether God can change. Read it.
And Scot McKnight discusses retirement—or why to delay it. Personally, I plan on working full-time until I'm at least 70 and continuing to copyedit stuff on a 20–30 hour/week basis as long as I'm mentally able.
Shift gears a bit here, as Philip Jenkins looks at martyrdom in the 20th century. Good stuff there; read it.
OK, the rest is pretty much COVID-19, so if you are sick of it, stop reading. But before you do, check out Bob on Books post about the difference between physical distancing and social distancing. Read it. He ends with this sobering paragraph:
None of our countries will be the same when this ends. David Brooks observed that after the 1918 flu pandemic, people avoided talking about it “because they were ashamed of how they behaved.” This pandemic could rend the fabric of our society even worse than it has been in recent years. Or it could re-focus us on what is important–the ways in which we are mutually dependent upon each other and every human being is of value. Are we going to hoard toilet paper and ammo, or invest in strengthening our social connections? While we practice physical distancing, will we focus on our social connectedness? You and I will make decisions in these next days and weeks that not only affect the health of millions but the fabric of our society. How will you choose?Yep. A crisis reveals who you are. Don't like what you see in yourself during this time? Remember that's who you were all along and submit it to God and let him change you as you humbly allow him to. That's pretty much what Stephen McAlpine is saying, too, only much better than I can. Here's a snippet, but read it all:
But I check that larder just in case. How much flour is in there? Way more than I’ve ever had there before. If Elisha the prophet came to our place and offered us flour and oil until the virus is over I’d be like “No thanks, we’ve got this.”Here are a few posts with some good pastoral advice: David Fitch on the power of a small group:Which is part of our problem. We’re so damned – and I mean that word – self sufficient. We’ve always got this.
Could it be that God has given us this time to force us to discover again the power of presence in a group of fewer than ten people? To learn how to be present in the smallest of ways in our neighborhoods, even if they have to become virtual by necessity? As we sit, eat, listen, dialogue, testify, and pray, will we see space opened for the working of God’s Spirit in this land? Will we engage, pray for, and help neighbors during this time? Will we see an outpouring of God’s Spirit in this time of crisis?Mike Glenn on how a punch in the face (like this pandemic) tends to show how your planning is, well, insufficient. After some very good advice, he sums it up with this:
The other major change is communities are watching to see how churches respond to their communities. Those who minister well during these challenges will be “validated” by their communities and new doors of evangelism and ministry will open in the future. Seeing the love of Christ lived out in real and life impacting ways will never be forgotten by our neighbors.Yep. It shows what's really in us. That's the problem, as is our herd instinct, so says Benjamin Corey, in a post aptly entitled "Group-Panic is a Faster Moving & Far More Dangerous Virus than Corona." Good insights.
Carmen Imes wrote a post on liminal states, a good anthropological term that describes where we are. Allow this liminal state to be used by God to mold us, as they apparently did in a plague during the 1500s. Steve Perisho has the details. While the Anxious Bench looks at the history of Psalm 91 and death. Good stuff.
For those interested in the medical side of the virus, check out this pair of Atlantic articles: An interview with Francis Collins, director of the NIH and a devout Christian, and this, on how the virus as a virus operates. And Emily Landon, the chief infectious disease epidemiologist at University of Chicago Medicine, gives some straight talk. Read all three.
What about the economic implications? Nobody really knows, but this article compares it to other recessions/depressions, and comes to the conclusion that
The markets are not normal, either. The stock market lost 20 percent of its value in just 21 days—the fastest and sharpest bear market on record, faster than 1929, faster than 1987, 10 times faster than 2007. The financial system has required no less than seven emergency interventions by the Federal Reserve in the past week. The country’s central bank has wrenched interest rates to zero, started buying more than half a trillion dollars of financial assets, and opened up special facilities to inject liquidity into the financial system.OK, I can't leave you in a depressed state with all this, so take a look at a humorous version of Teaching Online:Yet in the real economy, everything has halted, frozen in place. This is not a recession. It is an ice age.
Due to concerns about COVID-19, our university recently gave me three hours to move our entire class online for the next three to sixteen weeks. I am providing these instructions for a seamless, uninterrupted course experience. I have never taught online before, but with the help of our men’s field hockey coach turned online-learning coordinator, I have developed a virtual experience that matches the intimacy and rigor we cultivated in our Philosophy of Face-to-Face Discourse In the Public Square class.It devolves from there, but hopefully got a laugh from you, if only because it is far too accurate.
Valete!
Friday, March 20, 2020
Flatten the curve
That's what they are saying now (and have been for about a week). It makes sense, but it also means that the lockdown will be more extended. But the best way to prepare is not by hoarding and stockpiling! The best way is by being calm and exuding the peace of God in your daily life.
And this is serious stuff, too. The death rate in China for those who got the virus was running about 2–3%. That's double to triple what the average flu causes. But, the death rate currently in Italy, which is more like the United States in diet and habits, is running between 7–8% for those who get the virus (NPR). Think about that for a minute. If, as some are predicting (Merkel, prime minister of Germany), 80% of the population gets the virus, then we are looking at a potential of 18 million deaths (327.2 million in the US times 80% times 7%). Do the math!
By practicing social distancing, we flatten the curve. Yes, that means longer shutdown. But, by extending the time it also gives researchers a chance to develop a vaccine or discover other methods of mitigating the death rate.
Of course, you could change your diet, too. Stop eating junk food! It lowers your resistance. Take a look at this. Eat more fruits and vegetables. That's evidence-based advice, not a fad diet to make a quick buck.
And that's not just an
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