Category Archives: Culture, Society, and Politics

The Worshipping Animal

Posted on by
2

Every once in a while, a new definition of “human being” gets floated around, in order to distinguish us from the rest of the animal kingdom.  I think this effort has taken on a new intensity ever since biology revealed a supposedly unbroken connection between human beings and our suspected primate ancestors.  Unfortunately, these definitions don’t tend to hold up, leading to National Geographic or Discover articles touting the unremarkableness of human beings (for example, see this recent story about a study that compared the relative intelligence of human toddlers with chimpanzees and orangutans). Some proposed definitions have included man as the animal that uses language (debunked by Koko the gorilla and countless parrots), man the toolmaking animal (debunked by chimps that use sticks to hunt food), man the animal who uses tools to make tools (a convoluted definition if there ever was one), etc., etc.

But what about man the worshiping animal?  George Orwell, I think it was, once said that horses would create their god in their own image.  Good quote, one that gets bandied around a lot in late-night college discussions.  Except that, as far as we have ever been able to tell, no animal except man has a concept of God. No animal does anything that could be construed as religious or which does not have an obvious practical purpose. 

Only human beings worship.

Powered by ScribeFire.

Are Christians Too Republican?

Posted on by
Reply

In USA Today, David Gushee writes a plea to evangelicals suggesting that evangelical Christians should not be “married to the Republican Party.” I agree. But I think Gushee overlooks something vitally important when he writes,

Conservative evangelicals generally offer an unbiblically narrow policy agenda focused on just a few moral issues such as abortion and gay marriage instead of tackling the full range of biblical concerns, which include poverty, oppression and war.

There is no doubt that poverty, oppression, and war are important issues.  However, if you believe that an unborn baby is a living human being with the right to life, then abortion has killed millions of children in the 30+ years since Roe v. Wade.   As much as I might agree with a politician on a broad range of issues, I find it impossible to support someone – Republican or Democrat – who thinks that abortion is either no big deal or a fundamental human right.  And I think many evangelical Christians feel exactly like I do.

The Republican Party platform opposes abortion.  The Democratic Party platform states “we stand proudly for a woman’s right to choose, consistent with Roe v. Wade, and regardless of her ability to pay.”  I wish that it weren’t as simple as that – I wish that I had a legitimate choice between two or more political parties who opposed killing unborn children.  There’s a lot about the Republican Party that I dislike.  But I could no more vote for a pro-choice Democrat (or a pro-choice Republican) than I could vote for a candidate who accepted slavery as a moral right.

Trimming the Tree

Posted on by
Reply

Ginger trimming the treeTonight, we set up our Christmas tree. This will be the last Christmas for us in our current house, as we are moving the very week after!

Agatha’s OrnamentAgatha took this picture of the ornament with her face on it. She’s a talented photographer (especially for a 4-year-old), but she has a bit of an ego.

And here’s the final product!

The Tree!

Elizabeth and the treeAt Agatha’s insistence, we started a new Christmas tradition this year: gathering around the tree and singing a song (“Jingle Bells,” in this case). As our family is only four this year, and the tree is in a corner, we are glad that we selected a smallish tree this year, bought from the tree folks who normally sell out of an old RV at the putt-putt course, but this year had to move to a spot on Dixie Highway.

The Nature of Knowledge

Posted on by
Reply

The Faculty Ministry Leadeship Team (on which I serve, as part of my role with the Emerging Scholars Network) is reading Douglas Sloan’s book Faith and Knowledge: Mainline Protestantism and Higher Education. I’m keeping a reading journal on my other blog (parts one, two, and three, so far are up). 

One passage, in particular, strikes me as something I’ve been thinking over for some time.  Sloan describes how, after World War II, universities redefined “knowledge” into, basically, the “higher utilianarianism” of scientific, technical, and social research, and the “lower utilitarianism” of “community service and vocational training.”  As a result, there was “very little concern…for an education devoted to the deepening and enrichment of personal and cultural existence.”

Elizabeth and I are just beginning our childrens’ formal education.  Over the last few years, I have wished that my early education included more of the “great books” in the Western tradition.  I have been jealous of the ways that my poetic heroes – Eliot, Auden, Wilbur – were/are able to draw (seemingly) effortlessly from a depth of cultural knowledge that I had to google just to understand.  I’ve been attracted to the classical Christian education movement as a corrective to what I see as gaps in my personal education. 

Just this morning, I was talking with a friend at my other job about the nature of reason.  His work deals quite a bit with debunking scams and seeing through false claims, so he has been attracted to skeptical societies and logical arguments.  Even though he himself is a musician and writer, he seems to lean more to the naturalism favored by so many professional skeptics.  In my experience, hardened skeptics have become so accustomed to fighting false beliefs in UFOs, magic potions, and con artists, that they fail to recognize the truth in philosophy, theology, and religion.  In fact, they often lump the two groups together as mutually “unprovable.”

My Biological Creation?

Posted on by
Reply

QuiverA few days ago, on Jacob Two-Two (that’s right: today’s post draws from the very center of the Western canon), Jacob’s father referred to him as “my biological creation.”

 What a strange way of thinking about a child, especially from a father.  Whenever I have created something with my hands – a poem, say, or a bookshelf – there has been a defined process that I can describe, in which I can clearly point to the actions that I took to reach the final product.  I am working with pre-existing materials (the subjects of the poem, the wood for the bookshelf), but there is “sweat equity” that I contribute. 

In comparison, my contribution to “creating” a child seems trivial.

The Bible depicts children as a gift from God, and that holds true with my experience.  When my wife give birth to our first daughter, I felt like I was experiencing a miracle: a new person came into being.  I could never have done that myself.  I hope that I’m not stretching the exegesis too far by applying this psalm to my two daughters:

1 Unless the LORD builds the house,
       its builders labor in vain.
       Unless the LORD watches over the city,
       the watchmen stand guard in vain.

    2 In vain you rise early
       and stay up late,
       toiling for food to eat—
       for he grants sleep to those he loves.

    3 Sons are a heritage from the LORD,
       children a reward from him.

    4 Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
       are sons born in one’s youth.

    5 Blessed is the man
       whose quiver is full of them.
       They will not be put to shame
       when they contend with their enemies in the gate. (Psalm 127)