Author Archives: mhick255

This Just In: Wikipedia Wrong!

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Yet another case of Wikipedia providing bad information:

 

MIAMI (AP) — Actor-comedian Sinbad had the last laugh after his Wikipedia entry announced he was dead, the performer said Thursday.

Rumors began circulating Saturday regarding the posting, said Sinbad, who first got a telephone call from his daughter. The gossip quieted, but a few days later the 50-year-old entertainer said the phone calls, text messages and e-mails started pouring in by the hundreds.

“Saturday I rose from the dead and then died again,” the Los Angeles-based entertainer told The Associated Press in a phone interview.

 

I love Wikipedia. It’s a great way to get a quick overview of virtually any topic. Good articles also refer to you to helpful, reliable references. In some areas, it’s far and away the best resource I’ve found – for example, comic book characters, software comparisons, and, maybe unexpectedly, theology. With topics that a) many people with b) divergent perspectives c) care strongly about, then Wikipedia works quite well. Bad information is quickly squelched.

The problems arise when people don’t realize that literally anyone can edit Wikipedia. I think this is partly Wikipedia’s fault. It’s easy to miss. The home page only calls itself “the free encyclopedia.” The English main page goes further, calling itself “the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit,” but this important statement disappears when you actually view an article. I would wager that most people stumble upon Wikipedia entries through Google searches and never even seen the “anyone can edit” statement.

The term “encyclopedia,” for most people, connotes authority. Further, most people don’t know what a “wiki” is, so they miss the important element of Wikipedia’s name. If Wikipedia’s tagline was “the free community resource” or “the free user-created encyclopedia,” then I bet less confusion and litigation would occur.

At least Sinbad has a sense of humor about it.

Religion Reporting

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I wish that reporters who cover the religion beat knew their theology better. For example, in this article, which is about the efforts of “moderate Christians” (those who follow Christ in moderation?) to counter teachings about the rapture. The writer, Andrea Hopkins, does a pretty good job of comparing Tim LaHaye’s Left Behind novels with the teachings of the of Lutheran and Episcopal ministers she interviews, but she slips late in the article when she confuses the rapture with the second coming:

The success of the graphic novels is just one indication of the strength of belief in rapture, Armageddon, and the subsequent second coming of Jesus Christ. A 2006 survey for the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found 79 percent of American Christians believe in the second coming, with 20 percent believing it will happen in their lifetime.

I should hope that all Christians would believe in the second coming, since Jesus himself promised that it would happen, and it’s been included from the very beginning in foundational documents like the Nicene Creed. But the rapture is a distinct sub-belief, believed only by premillenialists, and then only by some premillenialists.

Also, Hopkins, as well as some of the ministers she interviews, seem to think that the rapture is based on Revelation, when the true foundation of rapture theology is 1 Thessalonians. I really wouldn’t expect the average reporter to pick up on this, but it’s disappointing that these ministers aren’t a bit more precise.

Lotteries: We're All Winners!

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This article from the NY Times describes a study which argues in favor of lotteries. The study found that simply imagining you could win has beneficial psychological effects.

“The people who denigrate lottery players are like 10-year-olds who are disgusted by the idea of sex: they are numb to its pleasures, so they say it’s not rational,” said Lloyd Cohen, a professor of law at George Mason University and author of an economic analysis, “Lotteries, Liberty and Legislatures,” who is himself a gambler and a card counter.

Dr. Cohen argues that lottery tickets are not an investment but a disposable consumer purchase, which changes the equation radically. Like a throwaway lifestyle magazine, lottery tickets engage transforming fantasies: a wine cellar, a pool, a vision of tropical blues and white sand. The difference is that the ticket can deliver.

That sounds more like an argument in favor of lifestyle magazines. Sure, you can’t buy them for a buck, but the pictures are prettier.

If the real benefit of lottery tickets comes from your imagination, couldn’t you just, um, use your imagination? Since when do I need to pay the someone a buck for the privilege of daydreaming that I have a boat?

Why I Hate Sports (or How is this Christian education?)

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The NY Times is reporting that the NCAA is no longer accepting transcripts from 4 high schools, including Luther Christian Academy in Philadelphia. Some of the key factoids about Luther Christian from the article:

  • The basketball coach, Daryl Schofield, is also the only teacher.
  • Four students told the NCAA that they are not required to attend class.
  • Schofield bragged that the school is adding a library next year (so, up until now, they did not have one).
  • The NY Times paraphrases Schofield saying that most of the students have already graduated high school, but “need another year of exposure as players.”
  • To come into compliance with the NCAA, Schofield – again, the basketball coach and only teacher – said that he’s planning to attend a conference on Christian education.

This isn’t the only basketball team-disguised-as-a-school that calls itself “Christian.” I’m also reminded of incidents from the past couple of years in which “Christian” high schools used over-age football players in order to win games against rivals.

Are these schools part of a trend of Christians breaking rules and compromising students’ education for the sake of sports success, or is it more of a general societal trend? Does it have anything to do with the idolization of Christian athletes as role models for the faith?

IMHO, Christians need to develop a theology of sports – I’m completely serious about this – that unpacks the meaning of sports and competition within the Christian life. This is an opinion I’ve had for a while. Sports is a HUGE factor in American culture, but there are rarely sermons that address sports as more than a metaphor or example of some other point. Without a theology of sports, which puts sports in the proper perspective and explore how they can be a fruitful part of a Christian’s life, it’s so easy for their importance to become overblown.

Catholics and Protestants

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A Question from Class: Would a Catholic see a member of Lakeside (or other Protestant Christian) as saved? I’m just curious as who they define as “saved”–those with a personal relationship with Christ, those who observe the sacrements, those who observe sacrements at a Catholic church, etc?

My Answer:
Great question! I am in the middle of reading a book that talks about exactly that.

Are Protestant saved, according to Catholics? Before Vatican II, the answer would have been simply, “No.” There is a Catholic dogma that states, “outside the church there is no salvation,” and that was understood to mean that Protestants are “outside the church.” (But not Eastern Orthodox churches – Catholic theology has recognized them as “true churches” for several hundred years.)

Vatican II changed all that. There was a document called Lumen Gentium (“Light to the Nations”) that acknowledged that there are true Christians, who are truly saved and in whom God is truly working, but who are not part of the Roman Catholic church. In other words, it recognized for the first time (!) that you can be Protestant and still be saved. Vatican II also spurred the Catholic Church to find common ground with other churches, with the idea that, as theological differences were worked out, those churches would “come home” to the “Mother Church” ( i.e. Rome). (That hasn’t exactly happened the way they planned.)

But (there’s always a but!), a church like Lakeside is a bit of a puzzle to Catholic theology. That same Lumen Gentium defines “the Church” as those who “preserve unity of communion with the successor of Peter” – i.e. the pope. Catholics view church as “top down,” starting with Christ, then flowing the apostles, and only then to the people. It’s the popes, bishops, and priests who form the foundation of the church. They don’t have a very good grid for understanding “bottom up” churches, where the church is first and foremost a fellowship of believers, who then elect and ordain their own leaders. So some Catholics would hesitate to even call Lakeside a church! ( <!– D(["mb","I think from Acts and 1 & 2 Corinthians, however, that it's pretty clear that we are.)

Finally, in terms of who is saved, I decided to look it up in the \nCatholic Catechism, which the official word on pretty much everything. When speaking about the people of God, it says that

\n One becomes a member of this people [of God] not by a physical birth, but by being "born anew," a birth "of water and the Spirit," that is, by faith in Christ, and Baptism.

\nThat's really close to what Lakeside says! It's just a small matter of defining "faith" and "baptism." 🙂

Mike

“,1] ); //–>I think from Acts and 1 & 2 Corinthians, however, that it’s pretty clear that we are.)

Finally, in terms of who is saved, I decided to look it up in the Catholic Catechism, which the official word on pretty much everything. When speaking about the people of God, it says that

One becomes a member of this people [of God] not by a physical birth, but by being “born anew,” a birth “of water and the Spirit,” that is, by faith in Christ, and Baptism.

That’s really close to what Lakeside says! It’s just a small matter of defining “faith” and “baptism.” 🙂