Author Archives: mhick255

Frightening Words from Gordon MacDonald

Quote

Posted on by
Reply

Natural gifts such as persona charisma, mental brightness, emotional strength, and organizational ability can impress and motivate people for a long time. Sometimes they can be mistaken for spiritual vitality and depth. Sadly, we do not have a Christian culture today that easily discriminates between a personal of spiritual depth and a person of raw talent. Like the wheat and the tares of Jesus’ parable, they can be difficult to distinguish. The result is that more than a few people can be fooled into thinking they are being influenced by a spiritual giant when in fact they are being manipulated by a dwarf. 

Gordon MacDonald, Ordering Your Private World, p. 5, emphasis added.

I find these words frightening because I think they are true.

Noll and Enns on Theological Diversity and Christian Unity

Quote

Posted on by
Reply

This quote expresses some of my recent thinking to an eery extent:

So if we find ethical, theological, and historical diversity in Scripture, we begin with the assumption that what the Bible intends for us to learn is not primarily concerned with textual unity or precise moral consistency as construed by modern ethicists, theologians, and historians. Rather, “The unity of the Bible is more subtle but at the same time deeper. It is a unity that should ultimately be sought in Christ himself, the living Word…”

Mark Noll, Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind, p. 139, quoting Peter Enns, Inspiration and Incarnation: Evangelicals and the Problem of the Old Testament.

Of course, this leads to several important questions: How much theological or historical disharmony can be tolerated? How much unity should we require for fellowship or organizational structures? What do we do with ethics or theologies that oppose each other? Nonetheless, I think Noll and Enns are on to something important here.

True Images of Kentucky?

Posted on by
Reply

I have very mixed feelings about this [beautiful photo gallery](http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/11/13/opinion/sunday/20111113_Opinion_Exposures.html) by [Shelby Lee Adams](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shelby_Lee_Adams) in today’s NY Times Sunday Review. The photos, without question, show true aspects of Kentucky life: Appalachian Gothic, shirtless men and boys, hunting trophies, haphazard piles of junk, families who seem at once welcoming and off-putting. Flannery O’Connor and William Faulkner come to mind, even though they were writers of the [Deep South](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deep_South), which should never be confused with the [Upland South](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Upland_South). The photos are both beautiful and disturbing.

However, since this photo gallery appears in the **New York** Times, will the primary audience see anything *besides* rednecks and hillbillies? Won’t this gallery simply reinforce existing stereotypes of Kentucky among the East Coast elites? Will they have any insight at all as to how to interpret this quote from Adams that accompanies the gallery?

> When I was young, I couldn’t wait to leave Kentucky. Now, as I get older, I value every day when I return.

Many people know about Kentucky author and farmer **Wendell Berry**, but I wish more people knew about [Harlan Hubbard](http://www.harlanhubbard.com/), classically trained painter and musician, an essayist who inspired Berry and who, like Berry, chose to live off the land in rural Kentucky rather than among the cultural elite. Hubbard is someone who gets you a bit closer to the paradoxical land that is Kentucky.

Link

I am not Anglican, but Elizabeth and I greatly value our time as visitors at St. John’s (Shaughnessy) Anglican Church while living in Vancouver. The most recent Regent College Anglican Studies Program newsletter includes two items from the past and the future of St. John’s (Shaughnessy) that I find interesting. First, a fine remembrance of **Harry Robinson**, longtime rector at St. John’s, who passed away earlier this year. Though not as well as known as his good friends J. I. Packer and John R. W. Stott, Rev. Robinson left a legacy, of which I have been a beneficiary.

Second, the assistant rector while we attended St. John’s, **Felix Orji**, is now **Bishop** Felix Orji in the Anglican Church in North America. What wonderful news – congratulations, Felix!

Mark Noll: The Atonement Points Us to Morally Complex Stories

Quote

Posted on by
Reply

> Since the atonement involves tremendous complexity and great mystery, **the best narratives will not be simplistic** (like movies were resolution comes through a car chase or gunfight). Neither will the best narratives be Manichean (where the good guys are all good and the bad guys are all bad). Nor will they be simply heroic (where protagonists triumph over obstacles through reliance on their own inner resources) or simply nihilistic (where the point is to enact the futility of human existence as in novels of Thomas Hardy like *Jude the Obscure* and *Tess of the D’Urbervilles*). Rather, **the best narratives will be morally complex**, as in fact the enduring tragedies, comedies, and novels — like *Oedipus Rex*, *King Lear*, *Paradise Lost*, and *Crime and Punishment* — regularly are. Such morally complex narratives are most satisfying because, in terms of atonement theology, **they are most true to life**.

Mark Noll, [Jesus Christ and the Life of the Mind](http://www.amazon.com/dp/0802866379/?tag=mikehickcom-20), p. 71. Emphasis added.