Intellectuelle   Culture

Freedom is a possession of inestimable value.
- Cicero

One of the best ways to estimate the value of something is to consider what life would be like without it. Today, it has been 229 years since the U.S. officially declared itself free from England, establishing a government that ensured - at times wisely, and other times not so wisely - certain unalienable rights to citizens that had been denied the same by their former ruler. So the early Americans were painfully aware of what the absence of such basic rights meant, and over 200 years later, we still benefit from this.

But for another spin on the subject, consider a sharp bit of common sense from G.K. Chesterton: "To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it." While we should be duly grateful for how blessed we Americans are to live under a government that grants us rights, the fact that such an obvious point should have to be made - even decades before Roe v. Wade and "the right to choose" - is indicative of how highly this country has exalted the idol of individual rights. The principle behind "Let freedom reign!" has been extolled to the fatal disregard of whether or not our free choices have inherent moral value. In other words, America needs to be reminded that at the end of freedom, there are reins - held by a God whose absolute moral standard will, quite frankly, trump individual rights as the majority of modern-day America knows them.

On that lighthearted note, have a happy (and safe) Fourth of July, everyone. (And just for kicks, a quick poll: do you call them "fireworks," "firecrackers," or something else? I want to know if it is a regional thing, or what.)

Apparently, our schools want to turn our children into namby-pambys so that they will grow up disoriented and spineless, i.e., lacking chests, as per C. S. Lewis.

In Men without chests,* the first chapter of Lewis’ The Abolition of Man, Lewis cites an alarming tendency among educators to disenchant naive schoolchildren with the right and proper sentiments they may hold: sentiments of honor toward their fellows and true respect for nature. Such sentiments are pure, developed within an innocent heart and guided by an upbringing which seeks to pass on eternal values rather than dispense with sentiment altogether, or replace the traditional with the newer and supposedly better.

Says Michelle Malkin in her column of June 29, Namby-pamby nation:

The left-wing Kumbaya crowd is quietly grooming a generation of pushovers in the public schools. At a time of war, when young Americans should be educated about this nation's resilience and steely resolve, educators are indoctrinating students with saccharine-sticky lessons on "non-violent conflict resolution" and "promoting constructive dialogues."

Peaceniks are covering our kids from head to toe in emotional bubble wrap. They are creating a nation of namby-pambies.

Since Samantha brought up sexual purity, let's discuss some other hot and bothersome topics:

1) How can Christian men, especially married ones, go to the beach? Or to a waterslide park?

I realize that just going out the door at this time of year is visually challenging for most men, but I've never understood how they can plant themselves right in the middle of guaranteed nakedness. It may even be worse than conducting a Bible study at Hooters (which I blogged about here and here).

2) How can Christian women wear bikinis in public?

I confess that I did for a season (I could write a whole post on that), but after I got married (and foolishly read Every Man's Battle--every man should read it, but not most women), I repented.  Of course now I wouldn't be caught dead in any swimsuit, but that's another matter.

3) How can Christian teens wear skimpy outfits?  And how can Christian parents let them?

Waterfall expresses my thoughts exactly:

One of my pasttimes lately is to contemplate the fact that pre-teen and young teenage girls will wear their Jesus t-shirts and cross necklaces with shorts that are so miniscule that you can see the beginning of the curve where the bottom of their butts start. Now, I'm not one to look at that aspect of people's anatomy, but you really can't help it when these kids wear these clothes. Particularly when their Jesus t-shirts are about two sizes too small, bringing their neo-breasts into perky prominence. My word. I'm really not getting prudish in my old age ... I just find it odd that these kids, of all people, dress this way.

Odd..dangerous..tragic.  Moms, where are you?  Hopefully not in the closet looking for your low cut form fitting sweater or your cleavage peek-a-boo sheer blouse or your butt hugging jeans or your...let's see, what other outfits have I seen on women of all ages at church lately? 

A woman at MOPS shared how she overheard her two elementary age sons discussing which woman at church wore the most "trampy" outfits.  They were debating whether it was one mom or another, based on the articles of clothing that had seen them in, i.e. "her shirts are the most low-cut" ..."yeah, but she [the other mom] wears the shortest skirts."

Because I'm on a major modesty crusade, I've blogged about this topic before here and here (you might want to check those before rehashing what I may have already covered). Sexual sins (which aided by lust) have brought down more Christians, especially leaders, than any other kind. I'm not isolating immodesty and lust and adultery from other sin issues that are obviously inextricably linked, and I do agree with getting to the root causes, but the basic fact remains that men are wired a certain way, and just as they have a responsibility to take precautions against lusting, we women need to do our part to not cause them to stumble...which means having our identity/security/esteem in God, not in the feeling we get from men paying attention to our looks.

chau tau’ qua (sha-to’kwa), n. [from the summer schools inaugurated at Chautauqua, New York, in 1874.] an assembly lasting several days, for educational and recreational purposes: the program includes lectures, concerts, etc.

I have barely had access to a computer lately due to an opportunity to stay on the grounds of Chautauqua Institution, where I play trumpet part-time with the Chautauqua Symphony. Work with the symphony has been especially heavy, but it’s great work.

Chautauqua Institution began 132 years ago as a summer camp for Methodist Sunday-school teachers but has since expanded greatly and spawned many other, smaller chautauquas around the country. The "Chautauqua Ideal” is based on a belief that knowledge and exploration of all kinds should be as available as possible to as many people as possible, for the improvement of humankind. Chautauqua, as it is called for short, gets its name from the lake it is situated upon. No one knows for sure the original meaning of the word, but popular local opinion has it as Indian for “bag tied in the middle.” (That’s because the lake looks like this.)

I live in the lap of luxury and liberalism.  If you were to make a hybrid of Berkeley and Hollywood, you would get Marin County.  It's where the serious celebrity activists reside, as opposed to the superficial stars whose political views are as much their own as the fashions they wear.  Our local paper just did a feature on longtime resident and actor Peter Coyote.  Here's an excerpt:

Coyote points out that the social changes the counterculture pioneered have succeeded in becoming part of mainstream America, unremarkable aspects of everyday life.

"The '60s changed the culture," he said. "We didn't change the politics. We thought we would end imperialism and capitalism, or moderate it, but we didn't do that. Those are huge historical forces that are going to take more than our generation to change. But if you look at what we did introduce to the culture - the civil rights movement, the organic food movement, the women's movement, alternative spirituality, alternative medical practices - these are huge. These are deep changes."

He's right.  They are huge.  Overgrown even (especially organic food).  The women's movement encompassed not just equality for women (a good thing) but abortion rights and feminism (which I prefer to call masculinism).  The civil rights movement didn't just help bring about equal and fair treatment of people of all races; it bred affirmative action and reverse discrimination.  Alternative spirituality is now mainstream spirituality and Christianity is suspect.  Alternative medicine and natural products have become commercialized and cost as much if not more than conventional treatments.

These ideals (and many more that took root in the sixties) were/are good--equality, holistic health, natural food, and freedom of worship--but they all contain a fatal flaw, which is why they have morphed into such extremes.  They are principles that have been detached from the God who created them and used to elevate his creation (human beings, animals, the environment).  Liberty is for free will's sake.  Goodness is for pleasure's sake.  Stewardship is for beauty's sake.  Everything meant to glorify God is rerouted to glorify people. 

As soon as the immortal is mortalized, it begins to decay.  The trick of the devil is to make it look like growth.  Which is why should hold all things up to the light of God's word written in ink and on our hearts, instead of blindly feeling our way around in the darkness of the culture, grasping for truth and meaning in the temporal and the tangible.

Anyone who knows me at all knows that the subject of common ground between believers and unbelievers is a topic I take great interest in. My position is that believers and unbelievers lack epistemic common ground and so anything that looks like agreement on the surface is just that - on the surface.

So the article, Paul before the Areopagus: Reflections on the Apostle's Encounter with Cultured Paganism" in the current Philosophia Christi has obvious interest to me. J. Daryl Charles writes:

"Paul is not waxing dishonest in seeking to establish rapport with his audience; he is, however, using wisdom in bridge-building...A very conspicuous strategy in Paul's address is the movement from general to specific. The apostle moves in calculated fashion from general revelatoin (vv. 22-9), which serves as a bridge or common ground between believer and unbeliever, to special revelation..."

We know from Romans 1 that all men know about God, I'm not disputing what Scripture says man knows. I am questioning, however, whether appeals to general revelation are rightly categorized as "common ground" arguments. This is something I've been working to articulate for some time...as some attempt to engage culture with arguments from "common ground" and appeal to Paul's visit to the Areopagus as grounds for doing so, they must remember that Paul wasn't done with his argument until he preached the risen Christ - an obvious proclamation of special revelation.

This week I received a copy of the study guide for Nancy Pearcey's Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Study Guide Edition) which is due to be released shortly. What I especially enjoy about it is that she has introduced new material in the form of recent events (e.g. Ron Reagan speaking on ESCr and cloning at the DNC). For each chapter of the book, she provides new material and examples showing the conflict between worldviews in the areas of bioethics, origins, and even the church and Christian higher ed. On page 485, Nancy takes the reader back to chapter 1 where she discusses how its possible "to be Christian in our beliefs yet secular in the way we live." She provides even more content to that discussion:

The vast majority of Christian colleges and universities perpetuate the sacred/secular divide, according to a study by Robert Benne (Quality of the Soul, 2001). He calls it an 'add-on' approach because it treats Christianity as something added on to the curriculum-through chapel, Bible studies, and prayer groups-while the course content is esentially the same as any secular university. These colleges define themselves as Christian because of their ethos and atmosphere, not because they teach a distinctive vision of the world.

The upshot is that many of our churches and schools are turning out young people who are Christian in their religious life but secular in their mental life-who unthinkingly absorb secular worldviews.

I couldn't help but to be personally impacted by this additional example. Recently, I've been faced with people in my life who wear their faith on their sleeve yet act in ways that are usually less than Christian. It's this behavior that shows how the Church has been secularized and why Total Truth is an important tool for Christian worldview education today.

Total Truth: Liberating Christianity from Its Cultural Captivity (Study Guide Ed.)

I promise I will never do this again, but it’s my blogiversary, so I’m going to link to a post at my other blog. I might even cry if I want to.

A short time ago I attended the dress rehearsal of Robert Ward's The Crucible as produced by the Chautauqua Opera Company. Unlike many operas that are merely overdone glorifications of bad behavior, The Crucible is a poignant commentary on the way people respond to things they fear and how far they will go to try to preserve a sense of well-being or get what they want. In many ways it is similar to Susannah, an opera I attended at Chautauqua about a year ago and wrote about in the second post on my other blog. Both operas were written during the McCarthy era. The two productions even shared an actress in common -- Jane Ohmes -- who was excellent in both, though her roles in each were quite different from one another.

I invite you to read my blogiversary post.

There once was a character named Potter
Who oft found himself in hot water.
Though some did defend, others bemoaned the trend
Keeping Potter from son and from daughter

In recent weeks, two Blog-Sistahs I respect greatly (Sora and Carmon) have had intense (though loving) disagreements about whether that current cultural phenomenon, Harry Potter, is appropriate for Christian consumption. There are a few specific bones of contention, one of the most interesting being whether we should avoid all novelistic portrayals of "good" magic, since occultic practices are specifically forbidden in the Scriptures (see Deuteronomy 18:9-11 and others).

We have never done Harry Potter, but issues similar to this are something we Christians face all the time. One that has always interested me is the question of whether we should avoid all art that depicts nudity. I have usually been in the minority when I have read discussions of this question various places online, with the usual defense of the no-nudity position being the Biblical command to be modest, with the injunction to avoid lust being thrown in there as well. Despite the importance of Christians striving to be both modest and pure in thought, I have never kept my children from seeing art that depicts nudity, as long as the intent of the painting is not meant to be lascivious. While I certainly think we probably want to avoid hanging a print of Renoir's Bathers on the wall above the bed of our adolescent sons, I have always thought that to seek to avoid all depictions of the human form in art is to run away from history.

I have a favorite novel, The PIllars of the Earth, which is a sweeping historical epic centered around the building of a great cathedral. The only problem with it is that out of 1000 or so pages, 8 or 9 of them depict graphic sexuality, so graphic that I decided not to give the novel to my husband to read. After all, I wouldn't hand him a novel with 8 or 9 Penthouse centerfolds interspersed thoughout. Yet, I still have that novel and re-read it every few years. Should I burn it because God forbids rape and fornication? This is not a facetious question at all, but rather one that I think is similar to Carmon's concern as to whether our discernment is somehow compromised if we accept fictional portrayals of behaviour which, in "real-life", we could not in good conscience participate in.

I certainly don't know the answer to this question, but I do think that the very concept of discernment carries within it the assumption that we are called to evaluate things, questionable material and unorthodox ideas included. We certainly can and should use the research and opinions of those we respect in making our determinations (who has the time or inclination to read or research everything, after all), but we have an example in the Bible of the Bereans, who "received the word with all eagerness, examining the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so". After seeing how two godly women can disagree so strongly, I just might have to get Harry Potter from the library and see for myself.

Conservative evangelicals often have a negative attitude toward “the culture.” I have seen this demonstrated repeatedly when I was growing up in a homeschooling environment and continue to see it in many evangelical magazines and blogs. “The culture” is deemed to be something bad and it is assumed that the church is not or ought not to be influence by “the culture.”

I suspect that this view grew out of the fundamentalist/modernist controversy of the past century. Fundamentalist grew more and more marginalized from what they viewed as a secular and hostile culture. The word “culture” seems to have become a synonym for the bad aspects of the current culture.

Unfortunately, this is an imprecise use of the word “culture.” I think it serves only to confuse non-Christians and to help Christian thinking remain fuzzy. It seems I hear daily ranting about how the church has been influence by “the culture.” Of course, I generally know what people mean and agree that the Church should not follow its home culture into sinful behavior. I just wish Christian could try to use the word “culture” in a more accurate way.

Blogging off of Hannah's excellent post, I wonder if the faulty usage of the word "culture" is an attempt at modernizing the Biblical language. What the Bible simply refers to as "the world" probably sounds odd to unbelievers, so in attempting to reach the world, we started referring to it as a culture. In any case, I "happened" across these simple yet profound culturally irrelevant (which makes them relevant to everyone) insights a few hours ago while reading 101 Days In the Epistles with Oswald Chambers:

An article on the August 17th New York Times described a situation that is unheard of today. In fact, when I first read it, I thought "Naaaaaaaaaaa...no way, that didn't happen." But in fact, it did.

This is what happened. A 19 year old, Ryan Cushing, was charged with assault for "tossing a turkey through a car windshield last fall." The driver of that car suffered severe injuries and was forced to undergo many hours of surgery to rebuild the broken bones in her face.

To make a long story short, the victim, Ms. Ruvolo, insisted that the prosecutors show mercy by granting a plea bargain. What could have been up to 25 years in prison is 6 months in jail and five years probation.

Some are attributing her compassion to a religious motivation. The article suggests that her "impulse may have been entirely secular." But I disagree that there can be a "secular rationale" for showing grace and mercy. Understanding man as having been created in the image of God explains why man acts in ways that are reflective of God's character.

Have you noticed the latest trend in advertising? Marketers have finely come to terms with the fact that size 2 is not average. Nike seems to have accepted the reality of larger women by launching a new advertising campaign that focuses on the many shapes and sizes of women, with special emphasis on various parts of the body. “My BUTT is big” is one example. Click the link and you’ll see what the big deal is. Don’t worry, the graphic is safe – it’s not vulgar, it’s just a big butt. The commentary is just as interesting:

“My butt is big and round like the letter C and ten thousand lunges have made it rounder but not smaller and that’s just fine. It’s a space heater for my side of the bed. It’s my ambassador to those who walk behind me. It’s a border collie that herds skinny women away from the best deals at clothing sales. My butt is big and that’s just fine and those who might scorn it are invited to kiss it. Just do it.”

Is society really developing an acceptance of larger people or is this just cheap lip service? I’m not suggesting the endorsement of obesity, but similar to the recent Dove advertisement, “Real Women have Real Curves,” I’m somewhat dazed and confused. While they seem to be paying tribute to larger women, are they really? What they image is still the smaller-than-life, below-average size 12. While attempting to address the poor self-image that many women have of themselves, they’ve at least given women a more reasonable goal to attain. I think the real question is, do we want to see what’s real or are we satisfied with Nike and Dove’s interpretation of reality? Salon.com’s “MY BUTT is huge” celebration of bodies weighs in on the issue more accurately, IMHO. It's not pretty, but it's real.

Neo used to only be followed by politan, but since a certain film broke him out of the ice cream matrix, his diverse following has grown to include politicians, philosophers, religious scholars, racists, and hi-tech toys, just to name a few. If you thought strawberry, chocolate and vanilla was a delicious study in complementary contrasts, get a load of the complex flavor of this sample of neophytes (which sometimes wind up in neofights):

* neologism
* neo-evangelicalism
* neoliberalism
* neoconservatism
* Neo Hasidism
* neo-Latin
* neolithic
* neonate
* neo-Nazi
* neophyte
* Neapolis (the original name of the originally)
* Greek city of Naples
* neoteny
* neopets
* neon
* neomail

Neo-evangelical is just the starting point for neodominance (?) in our subculture. There are neocalvinists (hyphenated? capitalized?) and I would like to proprose neodispensationalists (sounds better than progressive or leaky). I keep thinking neo must mean anything slapped upside the head. I guess we should define the term since it's still Greek to me. Actually it is Greek.

neo = a prefix derived from Greek that means new or recent, or in a modern form.

Excuse me? We here in America have traded in a single letter (w for o), exchanging our language for a foreign one. I think it's because since it's a prefix it can make something a single word, and my generation is lazy with language like that. Plus it sounds cooler...sometimes. Let's see what would happen if we were to use it even more liberally (pun not intended, unlike the rest of this post):

Do you like my neo-do? I'm going to a neostylist.

This is my neoblog. My other blog has become shabby chic.

Oreos? No thanks. I'd rather have Neos...er, um Neo's (?)

I'm a neo-Martha, but one day I'll have my own homemaking empire.

Neospeak can come in handy or it can get out of hand, which just goes to show that ice cream flavors are more influential than you might think. Before Neo broke up with Politan, Rocky ditched Road for his decade of stardom, and Vanilla has had countless brushes with fame, most of them unseemly. Which is why I stick with Moose Tracks. Moose does not have a ring to it and will never become a cultural icon. I prefer classic to newfangled, but I appreciate new ways of seeing as long as we keep Ecclesiastes 1:9 in mind and no one starts serving ice cream clones.

Neo-sourcery: Answers.com

D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones once observed that the biggest problems in life are due to the fact that we listen to ourselves far more than we talk to ourselves. Since I heard that insight, I've practiced his suggestion with increasing conviction of its truth. Doubtless it is something that we need to advocate in place of the rubbish about "listening to your heart," which most commonly means, "Pay close attention to how x makes you feel, and from there decide what is right/what you should do." Perhaps especially for women, emotions are far more unstable and unintelligible than our thoughts are - so what gives? What is it about emotions that makes people treat them as reliable for making decisions and discerning motives?

There once was a small publication
Equating theology with facial foundation
But 'tis not right to compare God with curling one's hair
For it cheapens our precious salvation.

There is now a New Testament in magazine format for teenage girls, complete with all the features you would expect to find in such a publication. Thomas Nelson Publishers, after interviewing teen girls, determined that God's Word needed to be slick, quick and filled with catchy sidebars:

"To meet discriminating adolescents' standards, Thomas Nelson brought in Thor 5 One, an Irish firm that designs the album covers for the rock band U2. The result: a glossy cover photo of three smiling teenage girls with glistening teeth and glowing skin, under florescent pink and blue headlines promising beauty secrets, quizzes and Q&As."

After all, Christ is called the Foundation in the Bible, right? So since these girls have spent so much time reading magazines that they can't read the Bible, the Revolve Team thought pointing out the similarities between Christ and their face makeup would, like, make Jesus, you know, relevant. Why hasn't anyone in the past thought of relating the Scriptures to such eternal spiritual questions as how best to clean one's pores?

"Looking nothing like the Good Book, Revolve was designed to spare teen girls Bible embarrassment should they want to bring scripture with them to school, to the mall or to their next basketball game. Aside from the words "The Complete New Testament" slicing across the cover, one might never suspect that the glossy magazine, teeming with photos of preternaturally happy, attractive gals, was anything more than a new entry into the already crowded teen 'zine market."

And that's what Revolve's creators want. "Teens were saying that they found the Bible to be too freaky, too big, too intimidating," says Laurie Whaley, Brand Manager for the New Century Version at Thomas Nelson, one of America's major Bible publishers and part of the Revolve team. "Revolve shows girls that reading the New Testament is just as easy as reading an issue of Seventeen or Vogue."

The scriptures are full of deep spiritual insights and theological doctrines that have stretched the minds of great thinkers for two millennia, but the Revolve Team has gotten past all that! They've brought it down to earth, and made it, like, so easy! Why didn't Gutenberg think of this, or King James? (Like, who's Gutenberg?)

And we know that God would never want anyone to be *embarassed* about their faith, wouldn't want them to stand out at all. If only the multitude of Christian martyrs had access to such a fun and lighthearted Gospel they might have been spared the embarassment of spilling their blood as a testimony to their faith. But today's arenas are not filled with hungry lions or stakes waiting to be made into human torches. Does this generation of young people know only high school football stadiums, so filled with others like themselves who have been so spoiled and coddled that the thought of having to bear witness and perhaps suffer embarassment for their faith is to be avoided at all costs? If so, methinks that they have been attending too many such frolics since their skill in reading has not risen above the magazine level, despite all the years of compulsory education.

This attempt to bring God's Word down to this level degrades the Lord. This is the King of the Universe we are talking about here, not some bud. Prayer is something deeper than talking to God when you're putting on your sunscreen. I am not saying at all that the Scriptures should ot be available in the vernacular, but the history of redemption and the gracious salvation provided by the Lord is not a triviality to be compared with cosmetics and beauty rituals.

In addition, filling the scriptures with sidebars full of "Beautiful People" and references to popular culture is a distraction from the Word of God, and could easily cause girls who are not attractive, or who have had sad or difficult lives, to equate beauty and happiness with godliness. The Bible speaks harshly against vanity, and this time of life is one in which the desire to preen and beautify oneself can become an obession. I'm sure the publishers of this thing would insist that they are speaking *against* such outward focus, but by presenting the Scriptures in this way they are in fact promoting these glamour values. It has been said that the medium is the message, and in this case that seems to be true.

Did you ever wonder why the BIble is called the *Holy* Scriptures? It is the holiness of God that will reveal all sin and silence every tongue on the day of judgement. We are doing no one any favors by minimizing this truth. No amount of makeup, no fashion, will be able to cover the sin of any of the readers of Revolve. Is this coming through loud and clear between all the eye candy and triviality? I understand that the text of Scripture is also here in this publication, and that God's Word is so powerful that it can cut through all this triviality and save, and yet I tremble to think that Christians accept shallowness of youth as inevitable, and pander to that, rather than seeking to inspire a deeper desire for the riches of the Gospel, and presenting it as something worth working to understand.

Speaking of contemporary women's ministry, someone at my church informed me about After Eve Young Women's Conference. The date of this event is November 4-5 in McLean, VA...and if I wasn't busy, I'd plan to attend.

After Eve is different from typical women's conferences:

This is a conference by young women for young women. We believe there are many out there thirsting for truth and facing challenges in their lives - just as we are...we want to bring them a fluff-free conference that deals with relevant matters and challenges them to a deeper walk with Christ through living by the Word.

Speakers include Shauna Niequist of Mars Hill Bible Church in Grand Rapids, MI, Julie Bell, Kerri Pomarolli, and Janet Congo.

Topics for the conference include My Will Be Done, Get Over Yourself, Just One of the Guys, and my two favorite titles, Theology is for Girls, Too! and My Secret Secular Life. This looks like a fabulous event, I hope they have a great turnout and a major impact!

For those interested in what's going on in the emergent church community, September 15 begins "A New Kind of Conversation Blogging Toward a Postmodern Faith” with contributors Brian McLaren, Mabiala Kenzo, Bruce Ellis Benson, Ellen Haroutunian and Myron Bradley Penner.

"This blog-book will discuss what a postmodern evangelical faith looks like. The blog format will make it possible to allow you the reader, to participate in the writing of both the blog and the eventual published book to follow by Paternoster Press. Be a part of this experiment in conversation by adding your voice to the discussion. Sign-up to be notified when this project kicks off, or just check out the website.

I thought I’d tackle my first post here on something I know a little about, reading. I’ve been in love with reading since I was little; in fact, many car rides my head was immersed in my book rather than looking at the scenery. On long trips, I’d read with the headlights of cars behind me so I could finish the next chapter. Besides the Harry Potter phenomenon, I don’t think children today have the same sense of being lost in a book and adults tend to be more engrossed with the latest sitcom or reality TV show than works of fiction (or non-fiction).

As a gross generalisation, I think it’s safe to say that our culture views reading almost entirely as a means to an end – just take a look at advertising and a gossip column in a slick glossy magazine. Words are meant to inform, be witty at times and tell you how to lose weight and stay sexy. Like all ‘chicken and egg’ problems, it’s hard to know which came first, which is the cause or effect – is it the primacy of images over words which lead to the decline of reading and writing or is it that linguistic stories lost their appeal thus making way for visual stories? Regardless of which came first, today, language is often stripped of its complexity, its ambiguity, its sound and meaning. It becomes a mere machine rather than something that helps to create meaning and delight. Part of this ‘death of the word’ is due to the cultural onslaught of images -- from the millions who will go to the movies this weekend rather than pick up a book, to the child who lives in a ghetto and doesn’t know how to read. It’s very easy to blame our culture of immediate gratification and consumer capitalism, the advent and dominance of television and movies as well as the increasing secularisation of the Western world for the ‘death of the word’. (Neil Postman’s book, Amusing Ourselves to Death is a great one on this subject; Barry Sander’s A is for Ox tackles the subject of literacy nicely). Our culture does indeed pander to this loss of importance placed on the word and it is easy to become enmeshed within our visual culture; at the same time, it is also easy to be viewed as antithetical to our culture (especially if we shun TV in favour of books) and thought of as snobbish intellectuals.

It’s easy to point fingers and it’s easy to run away from all that we consider ‘bad’ in culture to preserve the ‘good’, to preserve by withdrawing; but this isn’t the gospel. “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us,” John writes in his gospel. Jesus entered our filthy world and transformed it from within. He is not a theoretical Saviour who saved a theoretical world. He took part in the mess of human history and renewed it. However, the church, because it is full of sinners, has not been so successful (to put it mildly). Another reason that language has lost its fervour in favour of the immediacy of images, I think has to do with the church’s negligence or participation in the general cultural trend of images over Word (take for instance the increasing popularity for drama and videos during the Sunday service). By and large, our churches have lost the primacy of Christ in all things (the Word incarnate) and have lost the Reformers’ rallying call, sola scriptura. We have been more interested in a worship experience’ than truth, in ‘individual faith’ than an understanding of being the corporate, worldwide church and to the historic creeds and doctrines of the faith, in partisan politics and ‘the right to life’* than to the proclamation of the gospel and ministering to the poor. Some who have held strongly to the Bible, such as fundamentalists, have done so clutching their Bibles to them and beating off anything that smacks of “secularism” (playing into the false dichotomy of sacred v. secular) with a stick, while retreating back into a Christian enclave, thus holing themselves up in a Christian ghetto without seeking to transform their culture. We are happy to be completely in the world, sacrificing truth to convenience, or to be out of the world, neglecting to engage our culture, rather than being both in the world but not of it. We have not protected the sanctity of the Word and the cultural degeneration of words on the smaller scale has followed. We have not placed Christ at the centre of every sermon, Sunday service, or in our daily decisions. Thus, Jesus’ parables no longer surprise us; Paul’s syntax no longer causes us to rejoice that his every train of thought leads to praise, and the Psalms and Song of Songs have lost the beauty of their poetry. Of course this is not the case in all of our churches, but it is the case for many of them. Rather than focusing on the demise of good ol’ book-reading (which I am quite apt to do) may we first focus on transforming our pocket of the world through the power of the God “who makes all things new”. May we engage our culture on its own terms (for instance by our churches offering lectures and movie nights followed by discussion) while staying true to the Word, the Lord Jesus Christ, in whom we live and move and have our being.

*Please note I am in no way saying these issues do not matter, but when they become the only thing that sets us apart as Christians, something indeed is wrong.

One important thing I've learned in my first weeks at college is the distinct advantage of having a professor who will forward you articles of interest that provide the ever-welcome opportunity for productive procrastination. So when an article called "Developing a Discipline: The Recent Study of Western Church History in the People's Republic of China" pops up in my inbox, you'd better believe that a textbook reading about Archaic Era ceramics techniques is going to be demoted in priority.

The article, from the July edition of the Journal of Ecclesiastical History, explores the development of academic preoccupation with church history in post-Marxist China. Following the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), during which the privilege of practicing and studying traditional forms of culture (such as religion) was taken away, Deng Xiaoping stepped in with his policy of "reform and opening" in 1978. Several factors contributed to the revival of Christianity as a topic for scholarly study and the gradual departure from the Marxist theory of religion as the "opium of the masses." The prohibition on unregulated spiritual activities was lifted; Buddhism and Protestantism, interesting bedfellows, led in the subsequent revival of religious practice; intellectuals took notice, and the Chinese interest in western church history was born.

I found this NY Times article on Wednesday (hot tip from the ladies of Got Me a College Girl), read it over the course of a couple of days, and have been debating whether or not to make my response into a full-fledged essay. For now I think I'll just pick out enough quotes for brief commentary to encourage some discussion even if you aren't up to reading the whole article.

Many women at the nation's most elite colleges say they have already decided that they will put aside their careers in favor of raising children. Though some of these students are not planning to have children and some hope to have a family and work full time, many others, like Ms. Liu, say they will happily play a traditional female role, with motherhood their main commitment.

Much attention has been focused on career women who leave the work force to rear children. What seems to be changing is that while many women in college two or three decades ago expected to have full-time careers, their daughters, while still in college, say they have already decided to suspend or end their careers when they have children.

My first reaction was probably unwisely optimistic - I'm very excited to see women coming to their senses and realizing they can't do it all. But should we actually see a great number of women reclaiming the priority of family over career, there will no doubt be ugly reactions from a culture with a such skewed understanding of the roles of women who have families.

It is much more comfortable, of course, to go on speaking the gospel only in familiar phrases to the middle classes. But that would be as wrong as, for example, if Hudson Taylor had sent missionaries to China and then told them to learn only one of three separate dialects that the people spoke. In such a case, only one group out of three could hear the gospel. We cannot imagine Hudson Taylor being so hard-hearted. Of course he knew men do not believe without a work of the Holy Spirit, and his life was a life of prayer for this to happen; but he also knew that men cannot believe without hearing the gospel. Each generation of the Church in each setting has the responsibility of communicating the gospel in understandable terms, considering the language and thought-forms of that setting.

In a parallel way we are being as overwhelmingly unfair, even selfish, towards our own generation...The reason often we cannot speak to our children, let alone other people's, is because we have not taken the time to understand how different their thought-forms are from ours...So what is said in this book is not merely a matter of intellectual debate. It is not of interest only to academics. It is utterly crucial for those of us who are serious about communicating the Christian gospel in the twentieth century.

-Francis Schaeffer, Escape from Reason

Last night when I reread this section, it reminded me of a discussion/debate in the women's bible study I teach at my church. As we discussed Paul's passion for the gospel and the role of apologetics in evangelism, I was once again confronted with the false dichotomy of the heart and mind. Certainly we have no power outside of or independent of God to persuade anyone to have faith in Him, but apparently I've delluded myself into thinking that more people than not accept the role of the intellect as an instrument of God.

What I was able to gather in our discussion was that God's power is only actualized when the fact of Jesus' sacrifice for our sins is invoked in an outreach situation. This made me wonder if perhaps Romans 1:16 is being totally misunderstood:

For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. Romans 1:16

God's power certainly is not limited to what we would consider the doctrinal content of the gospel, but I have a feeling that this is exactly the nature of my battle this week.

The Pacific Fertility Center of San Francisco intends to recruit women to donate eggs for cloning and embryonic stem cell research for the South Korea-based World Stem Cell Foundation, which announced this week that it is opening a satellite operation in the San Francisco Bay area.

According to the Fertility Center's Dr. Philip Chenette, "women are fascinated by by the chance to help." Of course they are interested in the chance to help. The alternative response to the request would be "no, I'm not interested in helping people who are dying of diseases that research might prove to benefit."

Cloning and embryonic stem cell research depends upon the willingness of women to risk their own health and even their lives in order to produce eggs for research that they are told will help save lives (while, obviously, destroying lives - another issue for another blog entry). What real choice does a woman have to say "no" to such a request? The liberal side of our culture says that a woman has a right to make choices about her own body, but that real choices are often obscured by oppression, coercion, and power-mongering. Doesn't anyone else see how this project is exactly that and amounts to a pure objectification of women? The feminist outcry is barely a whisper at this point.

Tim Challies has written a piece on Halloween reminiscent of an article I read a couple years ago by John Fischer called Home for Halloween.

An excerpt from Challies’ post:

Perhaps the greatest fallacy Christians believe about Halloween is that by refusing to participate in the day we are somehow taking a stand against Satan. And second to that, is that participation in the day is an endorsement of Satan and his evil holidays. The truth is that Halloween is not much different from any other day in this world where, at least for the time being, every day is Satan's day and a celebration of him and his power. Another member of the Discussion List wrote the following. "Yeah... I've heard all of the 'pagan' reasons Christians should avoid Halloween. The question is whether we are actually particpating in Samhain when we participate in Halloween? Who or what makes the 'Witch's League of Public Awareness' the definers of what Halloween is, either now or historically? Such a connection between Samhain and my daughter as a ladybug or my son as a Bengals Boy is highly dubious."

I agree that October 31st, in and of itself, is no different than any other day of the year, but it does not follow that the celebration and practice of Halloween traditions and customs are no different from any other traditions or customs. Challies’ article also makes no case for the claim that the connection between Samhain and present-day trick-or-treating is “highly dubious.” If it weren’t for the ancient pagan customs, we clearly would not have our present-day ones.

I posted a response to Fischer’s article last October. I’ve since revised my position a bit, though my original concerns remain. The following is content from last year’s post, including text from a letter I sent to Mr. Fischer that I have gone through and revised.

Fischer claims it is a mistake for Christians to “boycott” Halloween because they cannot engage their neighbors by avoiding them at this time. However, I think there are two ways to look at this. I’m not sure it can definitively be said that participation in trick-or-treating represents being “in but not of the world.” Fischer goes so far as to say that by turning off the lights or going to an “alternative” celebration, one could be “lending credibility to the devil by denouncing Halloween as Satan’s day when most of those around us see it as nothing more than a day to dress up and have fun.” While many may view the day in this way, this does not change the origins of the practice and the obvious questionable associations the holiday has.

Dear Mr. Fischer,

I recently read your column, “Home for Halloween,” on the Breakpoint website. I applaud you for tackling the subject and agree that “what we do October 31st is a microcosm for our positioning in the world as Christians.” But I question your ideas as to how we should position ourselves.

While it is true that “morally neutral” social events, such as wedding parties, can be participated in either for God’s glory or against, I’m not convinced that trick-or-treating, in and of itself, is morally neutral, given its origins. An event’s moral neutrality is not guaranteed by its being “cultural” or “traditional," now or ever.

What, exactly, does modern-day Halloween celebrate? I’m not so sure that the answer is “mere neighborliness and fun.” In my view, Halloween cannot be disassociated from its pagan origins and trappings, and to attempt to do so may be irresponsible. Also irresponsible is the rationalization that it’s OK to participate because “it’s fun and everyone else does.” Halloween customs unfortunately come with a lot of baggage.

Perhaps it is not appropriate to practice a such questionable tradition and indoctrinate our children into it. Can we truly serve God by participating in a ritual (trick-or-treating) that has its origins in superstitious interactions with the dead and the appeasement of spirits that may be evil? Many people are confused or deceived about spirituality and the spiritual realm. Acceptance of a holiday that more or less validates spiritism may represent a capitulation to the occult and does not necessarily serve to educate about spiritual truth, even if it is participated in a way that does not overtly celebrate evil influence. Scripture exhorts us to be wary lest our actions cause another to stumble (Romans 15). This may be one of the most compelling arguments against participation in Halloween.

I’ve considered the view that friendly, hospitable, “good”-costumed participation in trick-or-treating that disregards the origin of the practice actually redeems it, and this view has much to commend it. But I can’t yet get past the fact that the syncretism involved lacks clarity, and is lent tacit endorsement via participation.

I don’t know that it necessarily serves God to have children knock at doors to mock-threaten the inhabitants, even if it IS done all in good fun. The influence of evil inherent in the practice, due to its origins, is not necessarily negated. There are certainly other ways to spread good will and be neighborly that don’t include sending children around the neighborhood to entertain and collect candy. (Kids don’t need the candy either :-) ) Why rely on Halloween as an excuse to interact with the neighbors? Why wait for Halloween to interact with the neighbors?

The custom of wearing costumes for trick-or-treat is rooted in superstition and caprice. While I believe it’s possible and even necessary to redeem pagan customs, I’m not sure that our custom of trick-or-treating redeems this one. Of course it’s fun to dress up, but dress-up should be a natural part of every child’s home play. Why over-emphasize it on all-Hallows-eve, after dark, to the accompaniment of orange holiday lights, symbols of death, hanging sheet ghosts, spider-web drapery, and stick-on witches?

Why inundate impressionable minds with darkly suggestive imagery, or participate in an activity that could lead to spiritual confusion down the road? Why risk taking advantage of innocence? A parent should discuss Halloween with his/her children, no question, but not necessarily while encouraging participation. Might not a parent be sending mixed messages? Even if a child is able to screen out all the “evil” stuff as nonsense, or else as just being “there” but having no power, he or she is still in essence paying tribute to an ancient pagan belief simply by acting it out.

Regarding Fischer’s statement about Satan, why should we not give Satan credit for Halloween's origins? He certainly deserves it. Satan is real and still has plenty of credibility as far as responsibility for spiritual confusion goes. Why else would we need God? Satan is the Great Pretender, the Great Deceiver. If he can fool innocent, unsuspecting people into thinking that scariness and trickiness and superstition and greed and masquerade are “fun,” then he surely is winning the battle. It is not true that if someone just ignores the “bad” stuff, it won’t hurt them or anyone else. Satan makes the bad look good. Or the good look bad. Or tries to convince us that there is no “bad” at all.

Scripture says we should avoid all forms of evil (I Thessalonians 5:22) and guard ourselves from idols (I John 5:21). This does not mean we have to pull the shades and sit, quivering and praying, in the dark recesses of our home on Halloween night...but perhaps it should!

Conscientious objection to Halloween is not necessarily an act of hiding. There may be an element of self-protection (as well as protection of the children entrusted to us) involved, but does not John 17:15 itself address this issue? A refusal to participate in Halloween activities need not be equated with a “removal of oneself from the world” any more than a refusal to participate in any unhealthy activity is. John 17:15 says, “...protect them from the evil one.” Is it always possible to do this while participating in Halloween? Would it be permissible to go to a South Pacific island as a missionary and participate in a ritual head-hunting dance, if only in a token way, yet not do the actual head hunting? I would think it best to sit out the dance as well.

I think it could be wishful thinking to say that we can “redeem” Halloween by trick-or-treating in good will. It may not be expressive of good will toward those who do not understand the truth of spiritual matters. Again, aren’t we endorsing the holiday itself by participating in it? The only alternative to non-participation is to hand out leaflets containing the history of Halloween (with appropriate verses of Scripture, plus a candy bar) or tracts to trick-or-treaters...but whether or not that is neighborly is a debate in itself. Yes, hospitality is a good thing, a requirement, even, yet I don’t think it follows that we must be hospitable to that which we don’t support, or attempt to hijack it. This is why many Christians opt to turn off the porch lights and have a family night instead. Or go to a harvest celebration.

I’m sure plenty of non-believers trick-or-treat in “good will” the same as believers do. What then can a believing trick-or-treater do to distinguish him- or herself from a non-believer? It’s probably not enough to just be friendly and wear a non-threatening costume. A child could dress in an angel costume and offer tracts instead of an empty treat bag, but again, a perhaps confusing way to get the message out.

Why not celebrate the harvest season instead? Why not hold an All Saints Day celebration? These things are certainly far worthier of honor and celebration than ancient pagan superstition. Let’s overcome evil with good in a substantial way!

(If we could remove all the trappings of Halloween from the practice of trick-or-treating and send kids dressed up in “clean” costumes around the neighborhood bearing gifts to give or exchange, and change the name, and choose some other day to celebrate it, then we might have a community service opportunity!)

Note: I have no problem with differences of opinion on this issue. I realize that elements of strong vs. weak faith may enter in as well. The case for hospitality is well-taken, yet I cannot figure out how to separate it from tacit endorsement of a superstitious tradition that may wreak spiritual havoc in the hearts and minds of some, or at least yield confusion or temptation, via the seeds planted.

addendum: I am getting a clearer picture now of what's behind the debate: I was not aware that the pagan roots of Halloween are actually seriously disputed. (Sheesh, where have I been??) I have, however, been aware of the view offered by The Dane, i.e., that the roots are in no way related to present-day celebration of Halloween in America. It is his view that I've been essentially disputing. But the former issue does lend a different twist to the debate, obviously, because it involves truth, or lack thereof, of "facts" behind the decisions we make. This is a matter I will look into.

As I sit here in my office, trying to write another chapter for my PhD I find my mind wandering into bigger questions about Christian women in the academy. I’m sure loads of books could be written on the subject, but I shall just present a few of my thoughts in a few posts on the subject.

Christians in the academy – Today the idea of being a Christian in the academy has a number of challenges (like any work that we are to do, the Christian finds her/himself under attack and 'not quite fitting' because we don't quite fit in this world).

However, Christians can have an amazing presence in academic institutions as being a Christian academic (and doing academic work Christianly) opens up avenues to live out the gospel among very intellectual and often anti-Christian colleagues. For all those academics that think Christianity is simply an emotional crutch, an informed and intelligent Christian can help explode their facile categories (which is probably what they’re in the business of doing anyhow – exposing structures of oppression to open up texts and practices to for example, feminist, Marxist, postmodern, readings).

However, at points I feel that as a Christian, I should be doing something 'more worthwhile' with my life, helping more directly to alleviate poverty, for instance. While I completely believe that we can do our part to help alleviate poverty not only through cheerful giving but in the everyday choices we make about what products we buy and what business practices we support, there still exists a nagging feeling that the academic life is primarily selfish. I’m only in this position in life because I grew up in an upper middle-class milieu that expected I get a college degree and if interested, pursue graduate study. Here I am, in a foreign city, getting to spend everyday reading and writing – it’s absolutely thrilling. And yet, I wonder what’s the point of this? When there are thousands of Pakistani people living in tents with winter approaching, how come I get to sit here with sufficient heat and read of all things?

I then remember that Calvin emphasised that any true work – in any sphere – is part of one’s calling in Christ, a vocation. That there’s no such thing as “full time ministry” being restricted to pastors and missionaries, but that in whatever sphere we find ourselves we are to do our work to the glory of God. Christian academics should be the best academics out there -- same with Christian artists (another topic for another time), Christian businesspeople, and Christian homemakers. If the academic life – for whatever space of time – is my vocation then I need to complete my PhD not simply as an exercise (in sanity?) to get through but as working to the Lord. I need not be apologetic about my intelligence, apologetic that I don’t have children yet, because right now, I am here.

That’s a wonderful word, ‘here’. It helps me to focus on living in the present (rather than planning out my entire future – as if I could!) and realise that God holds my future, be it academic or otherwise. But for today, I can do my work by serving Christ in my office and trying to write to the glory of God.

It’s a hard vocation and often I honestly don’t feel up to it. I don’t feel intellectually rigorous enough to be taken seriously as a Christian. I don’t want to rock the boat too much either. I slip back into false dualisms of faith on one side and my intellectual life on another (or I mistakingly think that faith is only intellectual so that I ward of the anti-intellectual emotivism so common in contemporary evangelical culture). But I realise that God has placed me here, now, for a reason and so as long as he has me here, I shall ask for his strength to enable me to work in this academic life to his glory. Now, I better get to work.

Next up, Christian women in academia.

Still looking for the perfect Christmas gift for someone special? Well let me suggest this resource. World Vision has a 2005 Christmas Gift Catalog from which you can send meaningful gifts for the person who has everything. For only $150, you can provide a family with a sewing machine that will not only help in making clothes for themselves, it can also become a source of income. For $150 you can help a disabled child by giving the gift of mobility in the form of a wheelchair. $50 will give a family 4 chickens which will provide food for a few meals, or eggs for a much longer period of time. But what I'm absolutely amazed at is how $35 will help support young girls who have been rescued from sex trade.

Every Christmas we get bombarded by the materialism of our society and get so caught up in the busy-ness of the season that it becomes easy to forget about the less fortunate. Whether its through World Vision or another organization, or just a need that you see that no one else is taking care of, I hope you will stop to consider how you can help.

On Thursday of last week (January 12), my colleague Joe Carter and myself provided testimony at an Illinois committee hearing. As proponents of a bill to ban the funding of human cloning in Illinois, our testimony focused on how human cloning will exploit women, especially poor and minorities, in that it is her eggs that are necessary to the pursuit of human cloning.

The Human Services Committee of the Illinois General Assembly seemed completely uninterested in the facts. Sometime after Joe and I finished giving our testimony, the chairman began a comment with "You people..." as he went on to complain that people like us - I guess conservative, white people - shouldn't be worrying ourselves about the exploitation of the poor and minority communities...apparently that's forbidden territory. And at some point after that outrageous remark, the chairman attempted to describe the goal of human cloning, describing embryonic stem cell research as somehow creating a clone and injecting it into a person's spine (as one example he had for treatment.) Finally, a witness who offered testimony for the opposition of this bill insisted that eggs are not needed for human cloning, that we can get all we need from left over embryos at fertility clinics. Apparently she doesn't know that those aren't cloned embryos in frozen storage at fertility clinics. It's a shame that this level of intellect is attempting to play a role of leadership at an organization called Protestants for the Common Good...but then, perhaps, that's all they have.

An interesting quote I found today is egg in the face of Illinois' liberal political establishment: "You cannot clone an embryo without an egg and you cannot get eggs without a clinic." This, from Newcastle University Professor Michael Whitaker, dean of research at its faculty of medical sciences.

Academics often say biblical belief has no place in the social sciences because it keeps people from open-minded analysis of data. Actually, the opposite is true: A biblical worldview often reveals the limitations of conventional approaches and pushes us to ask the right questions so that the data we obtain will not leave us still ignorant.

Biblical social scientists have an advantage because they know truths about human nature. Those who dismiss the Bible and create surveys that don't measure crucial factors are the ones who have closed minds. Sometimes the Bible gives us clear answers and sometimes it doesn't, but it always helps us to ask the right questions.

Olasky's words remind me of a post I wrote last year wondering why columnist Ellen Goodman made astute observations about people and leadership yet didn't seem to understand what the things she observed meant. She couldn't see them for what they were, apparently, because her worldview lacked a biblical perspective (or, more specifically, a saving faith in Jesus Christ.)

Conversion to such faith invariably results in a change of worldview, which is what many evangelicals focus on when seeking to "engage the culture." They've observed differences among the worldviews produced by various beliefs and seek to evangelize by engaging people via these worldviews (I hope I'm getting that right). "Worldview" thinking has received criticism, though, because the focus of such thinking can center upon worldview itself rather than on the beliefs that form it or the gospel that ought to inform it. Besides that, not all "true believers" have fully identical worldviews (obviously), and this is not necessarily because someone is wrong.

When hearing the gospel, a person can't help but filter it through their worldview, or, perhaps more accurate, their personal life-view, and it may not make sense if not explained in that language. This is what Paul means by becoming all things to all (I Corinthians 9:22), and I think it's part of the basis for a "worldview"-type evangelism. We have to remember, though, that much of what we call worldview is culturally informed, and none of us is outside of culture; we are each part of one or many cultures, or an amalgam of many. When we speak of reaching the culture, we are really speaking of cross-cultural dialogue. Being in but not of the world does not (and should not) mean we have a different culture; it means we live in the culture differently.

I think we have to go beyond cultural and "worldview" differences to the real humanity that each and every one of us shares -- the truth of who we really are and of who God is and what He did for us in Jesus. Underneath it all, we are all basically the same. Worldview change has to start here, and a complete transformation (if even possible) takes time to achieve. Indeed, our worldviews are continually changing as we work out our salvation, though perhaps not as drastically as when we first came to saving faith. Therefore, discussion of worldview may actually be more fruitful when taken up with those who have some openness to, or even a burgeoning faith in, God (through Jesus) already.

But we must start with the basics. If we gently speak to that which, underneath it all, we "can't not know" -- that common ground that we all share -- (which ultimately involves matters of the heart as well as the mind) then we may find a fertile place to sow the seed of the gospel. We can worry about cultivation afterwards. It doesn't do a whole lot of good to point out differences in worldviews if we are not addressing the matters of the heart/mind that lead to those worldviews.

Part 1, in the Church

I don't know of a more hot-button topic for both the churched and unchurched than this one. For that reason, we should probably try to take a fresh new look at threading out the various views on just what a woman's place in society consists of.

It seems as if there are more presumptions on what the Christian scriptures say than there are authoritative doctrines. And of the authoritative doctrines, few are widely agreed upon as to how they work in the modern world. I'd like to look at that. In fact, I'd like to look at that with one of the more curious variations of recent memory: that blogging is a questionably womanly pursuit.

But first, what are some of the controversies? Women themselves are not agreed on what woman's freedom, rights, and dignities are or ought to be. And this has lead to some confusion about what the reaction of re-instituting traditional roles should look like. An example: Feminists of today would eschew the mid-twentieth century persona of "June Cleaver", TV mother. Neo-traditionalists seem to view those scenes with scentimental nostalgia. But what are we really looking at when we review mid-twentieth century female roles and lifestyle? Aren't we seeing the Feminine Mystique generation? The women who oftentimes threw off the homemaker's mantle and went into the workplace in hordes, who sometimes left home to " find themselves"? Or had to make new lives for themselves as divorce rates skyrocketed? I know my mother had 'Feminine Mystique' on her bookshelf, had to become a breadwinner, and lived a very different life from the Donna Reed Show, et al. This is why I don't think it is in looking backward culturally that we may find the defining roles of women.

And where has the Church been in all this? Pretty much where the rest of the culture has been: experimenting and floundering around to define women and understand how society should work. The Church hasn't had a voice of consensus. And I think it is out of laziness and self-protection that it hasn't yet produced clarity for even women in the Church, let alone a view of women in the Culture.

Further, the responsibility for this has lain with the Protestants. The ones who lay claim to Sola Scriptura, and studying to show oneself approved. But instead we are tangled up with reiterations of traditions and slipshod adoption of the culture's lead on this. The Worldly culture. We are the ones who ought to be able to work at rightly applying how the Bible's directives appear in our culture.

We Are Not Asking To "Remake" Christianity

Something that parts of Christianity has borrowed from the surrounding relativistic society is an idea that we are creating the expression of Christ in the world in an evolutionary way. I cannot emphasize enough that if one tweaks and twists the Christian faith to accomodate the culture's views, or individual's preferences, at some point what results is a set of beliefs that are something, but no longer Christianity. That is why I am not suggesting that we brainstorm a new view.

What is suggested here is the fresh look at the original truths, and that we stop trying to elaborate on those with our own traditions and teachings.

This would result in changes in the Churches... and possibly our world.

We Do Want To Define

Many would take the first two title words of this post as a contradiction in terms. But I don't think they have to be a contradiction; and frankly, it's often our dollar/pound/yen/euro that speaks louder than our Sunday morning pieties about supporting the poor.

So how do we go about living out the gospel with our pocketbooks?

The thing is (as a large generalisation), it seems that most of the "liberal" churches are concerned about social justice issues while the more "evangelical" sort tend to focus on saving souls rather than alleviating poverty. But because Christianity is simply the good news of Jesus Christ and believing that the gospel is the very power of God, we need to be motivated to help alleviate poverty as well as introducing people to Jesus -- for we can only introduce people to Jesus if we love them first.

Therefore, I'd like to simply offer a few suggestions and links for further info for you to consider how to make a difference with your dollar. Let me reiterate that the reasons that Christians do such things isn't primarily because "it's good for the environment" or because "it's something we should do" or because we have a guilty conscience. No, we do such things because we are motivated by the fact that God, in his infinite mercy, redeemed us -- poor, ugly, broken and utterly helpless -- and so we too are to help those who are in need of physical, psychological, emotional and spiritual redemption.

1. Buy Fair Trade: Fair Trade is pretty big here in the UK and is just starting to catch on in the US (one of my friends is instrumental in the grassroots efforts of Fair Trade LA). Fair Trade works at making trade fair by paying farmers for their products at a sustainable wage as well as allowing them to invest in the future. My favourite product is Green and Blacks chocolate: it's organic, fairly traded, and tastier than your average bar.

2. Buy organic, local produce: There are a ton of local fruit and

(or women :-) )

A good friend of mine (Rusty Lopez) referred me to a great article by John Fischer at Chuck Colson’s Breakpoint website. (thanks, Rusty) Fischer’s concern as expressed in The Separation of Church and Hate is similar to mine – there is far too much witness to The Enemy (Satan) than to Christ in some of the things that come out of Christians’ mouths or are committed by them. Yet I think he takes this idea’s complement, i.e., that non-Christians in essence may be more discerning in a Christlike way than Christians themselves, too far:

...there are a significant number of people who equate Christians in America with hate. Though I’m sure some of this can be blamed on the media and the resulting propaganda surrounding a culture war, that doesn’t explain everything. We must have given ample reason to make the connection.

...If Christians were consistently acting in loving ways toward each other and toward those who are not of the household of faith, this association could not have been made. (emphasis added)

- summing up my own view
...touching on woman pastors, parachurch alternatives, and double standard choices.

"God doesn't take sides."

The radio show host Dennis Prager discussed this slogan repeated on Jon Stewart's show when his guest was former Secretary of State Madeline Albright. Dennis correctly pointed out that if God doesn't take sides, if He doesn't have a moral will, then He's not a God who deserves our love and trust. Did God have a preference between the slaveholders and the abolitionists in the Civil War? Between the Axis and the Allies in World War 2? Of course, He did.

If you believe in right and wrong - morally or otherwise - and I would think God knows the difference, then doesn't God take a side based on what's right? So if God