Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Some Basic Linguistics

    One of the great problems I find in teaching biblical languages, or in explaining Bible translation to lay audiences, is that people don’t understand meaning very well. They assume that words have fixed, narrow ranges of meaning, and that if you search carefully, you can find a word or phrase to precisely represent that word in the target language.

    Most of them have some idea that this might not be right, but that hasn’t seeped through to their practice. A few questions usually suffices to get the process started.

    I’m embedding a video from Wycliffe Bible Translators (UK), or rather audio with a slide show, that does a good job with the basic concepts. This one doesn’t go in depth. What it does is clear a lot of the ground and get some basic structures in place. (HT: Kouya Chronicle.)

     

     

  • Morally Crude Blogging?

    John Hobbins thinks Jim West’s blogging style is “morally crude.” I confess that I find Jim West’s style mildly annoying, such that I don’t usually bother to read the most popular and prolific biblioblogger except on rare occasions, but he does hit the nail on the head at times.

    I read somewhere that there are two types of bloggers-the linkers and the writers. Jim West tends to be a linker, with brief comments. Brief comments do tend to miss the nuances. John Hobbins and I are both in the writer category–we write longer posts on average (and John writes in a much more scholarly way than I do). We’re both less popular in the blogosphere by such measures as are available.

    What do you think? Is the style morally crude? Is it perhaps some specific opinions, and not the approach to blogging? (Note that I do find the thread John linked offensive, but I’m used to skipping through things that offend me in the blogosphere.)

  • John Meunier Wants to be a Methodist

    Stripped image of John Wesley
    Image via Wikipedia

    No, not just a member of a United Methodist congregation, but a Methodist. He has been reading Scott Kisker, and after his discussion he notes:

    I don’t want something more than they do. “More” is not the right word. I want something real. I want to be part of the movement that started in a fishing village in Galilee and was rekindled in a coal field in England. I want the assurance of the Holy Spirit. I want the power of grace working in me to restore the image of God and the mind that was in Christ. I want to be one of the people called Methodist.

    Read the whole thing.

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  • In Which I Make Two Intemperate Remarks

    I was talking to a friend the other day. Our main topic was church and the way it was done. In the course of our conversation I discussed what I feel is the 1 Corinthians 14 church, you know, the one Paul was trying to correct. (I discuss what I think about it in my post The Problem with 1 Corinthians 14 Worship.) I was also discussing handling of incorrect statements in church, whether these are off-the-wall interpretations of Bible passages, or people claiming to speak a prophetic word that is truly not from God.

    In summary, I believe the Corinthian church was active and alive, and everyone came in with a message. There would be multiple messages given to the group, and there would be discussion. I believe the New Testament model would be for people to speak and then for others to affirm or correct as necessary. I acknowledge the problems, and in our conversation I mentioned how many friends of mine who are pastors are not too happy with my view. They’d prefer to check the message before anyone hears it, so none are led astray, and they’d also prefer not to have to affirm or correct any statement in a public setting.

    I acknowledge that I am not a pastor and thus may be less sensitive to these problems. I also know that telling someone they are actually wrong in a public place is very much against our cultural norms. We really prefer to keep the face of things happy and affirming, and take care of any questions out of sight. But I don’t think a church modeled after the ideal presented in 1 Corinthians 14 (and elsewhere in the NT) can function in that way.

    In our discussion, this brought forth my first intemperate statement. After we’d discussed these points, and both agreed about the difficulty of accomplishing this, I said: “It had better be possible. If not, my life work thus far has been in vain.”

    It was out of my mouth before it passed through my brain. But it has stuck with me, and I haven’t found much reason to back off of it. To me, the church, if it is to be the body of Christ, must have input coming from everyone, and must have everyone involved. We are all baptized into the same Spirit (read all of 1 Corinthians 12-14 to get this picture), and we all have gifts. These gifts are to come together. That, to me, is church. If church doesn’t work, I have truly been wasting my time.

    I would note that I don’t mean spreading people’s private issues and problems in public, where they can be kept private. I don’t mean gossip and tale bearing. I mean every member involved in the theological thinking and practical visioning of the church body on a regular and constant basis.

    What do you think? How intemperate was I?

    Then there was the second intemperate statement, which needs more qualification on further thought. My friend asked me which seminary I would recommend a young person go to in preparation for Methodist ministry. My intemperate answer? “I wouldn’t.”

    Yet there are things I like about various seminaries. My problem here is that I don’t like the professional education approach to preparation for pastoring. In fact, I don’t like it much for anything at all. I think our educational system is well-designed to prepare people to live in the 19th century. it’s not completely incapable of preparing people for the 20th century, but it’s not fully equipped for that task. Unfortunately, none of us have the option to live in either of those centuries.

    I may really stun my friends in educational institutions, but I think the traditional university is a surviving fossil. It’s going to go away over time, or at least become a very minor factor. The reason is that technology and information is developing too fast for one to dedicate a certain percentage of one’s life to going to school, then assume education is complete, except for an occasional refresher in some continuing education program.

    We’re going to need to find a way to work and further our education simultaneously. We’re also going to want to benefit from scholars from around the world in any educational program, not just those who happen to be in the local area. This is a long subject, and I’m sure people will be very annoyed as things progress. There is already a great deal of prejudice against distance learning. Some of this comes from growing pains. Some of it is completely unjustified. Note to critics: You need to do more than point to problems with distance/online learning. You need to realize the imperfections of resident learning as well.

    So again, how intemperate was I?

     

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  • Why Millenials Leave the Church

    … because they don’t need it for social networking, says Richard Beck, as quoted by Scot McKnight. So if we’re running a church that is basically just a social network, why would they go?

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  • Dogma Tweets

    OK, these are just too much fun.  I understand some people have gotten offended. If you’re that easily offended you should read them–you deserve it! (HT: Dave Black Online.)

  • Persecution

    I hear complaints from time to time that American Christians are persecuted. Usually this means some minor annoyance, such as being ridiculed for some belief or another. I’ve even heard the complaint when someone is challenged to provide a defense for their faith.

    One of the best ways to get our balance, and to realize how privileged we are in America, despite any minor annoyances, we have but to look at places where Christians are currently actively persecuted, where a threat to their livelihood is the most minor of persecutions, where, in fact, Christians may be killed for their faith.

    World Prayr, an organization with which I’m associated, has been highlighting persecuted Christians on their blog in their daily devotional posts.  (You can find today’s post here.)

    I’d like to add one thing here. In America, we are in the majority as Christians. We may complain about nominal Christians or Christians in name, but churches are ubiquitous, and well accepted. As a majority, we need to resist the temptation to behave as persecutors. As an example, I’m referring to opposition to allowing Muslims to build mosques, and to opposing minority religion representation amongst military chaplains. If these things happened to Christian minorities in other countries, we’d regard it as persecution. We need to do unto others as we would have them do to us.

     

  • My Dad Was a Fundamentalist

    Labels are such tricky things, and any linguist is aware of the problems of saying that a word should mean some certain thing. So I’m going to resist that. But it would be nice to have a label for people who were very firm about the tenets of their faith, and yet was not also a pejorative term.

    More and more, “fundamentalist” is used in a pejorative sense. You can be an evangelical Christian, and you might be considered a reasonable person. A little over pious, perhaps, but reasonable. But fundamentalist now carries the connotation of Westboro Baptist protesting at funerals, suicide bombers, and planes flying into buildings. Most fundamentalists I know, whether Christian or Muslim, don’t think the actions of those groups. You even have the term “fundamentalist atheist” for atheists who are firm in expressing their beliefs and don’t give in to anyone else.

    On one online forum in which I participated, the common standard was to use “fundamentalist” of the person’s basic beliefs, but to call someone who was also over the line in terms of behavior a “fundy.” It didn’t always work. In fact, it rarely worked, because a pejorative label is unlikely to be received well by anyone.

    Now my dad was, in terms of beliefs, a fundamentalist Christian. He believed literally in all the major doctrines–virgin birth, resurrection, a literal and imminent second coming of Jesus, the complete truth of the Bible, a literal and recent reading of the Genesis creation story, and salvation by faith alone in Christ alone. He didn’t waver from any of those believes.

    He was also a medical doctor who spent his life serving others. He never made the kind of money that one expects of a physician. He never intended to nor did he try to. He put his effort into serving. He made no distinctions of religion, race, or nationality (or of any other kind that I know of) in the people he served. He treated everyone with the sort of respect that must be part of one’s nature; it’s not put on, so it never slips. He fit none of the stereotypes of a fundamentalist.

    I disagree with some of the religious positions my father held, but I have a profound respect for his faith, his service, and the way he dealt with people. I’m deeply grateful to have grown up under that influence. When I call my father a fundamentalist, I mean no disrespect whatsoever. Yet the term carries that disrespect, and at the same time, I know no other the fully reflects his beliefs.

    Language changes, and is nearly impossible to turn from its course. I wonder if I should try to rescue the term “fundamentalist” so as to make it descriptive rather than pejorative, but I doubt I’d succeed. Perhaps I just need to write something like this every so often, to remind people that “fundamentalist” is not a synonym either for “terrorist” or “idiot.”

    As someone who is distinctly non-fundamentalist, perhaps I’m a good person to make that statement.

     

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  • Cameras in Public Places

    A red light camera in Chicago, USA.
    Image via Wikipedia

    There are three issues I’ve been wanting to comment on, but because I see all three as related, I’ve been looking for the right moment. I think this story, about cops caught on speed and red light cameras, gives me the right opportunity.

    The three issues are:

    1. Videotaping (or otherwise recording) police performing their duties
    2. Security cameras in public places
    3. Red light and speeding cameras

    Nobody likes to get caught by the cameras, no matter what. Civil libertarians, with whom I am usually in agreement, object to many instances of cameras as excessively invasive. Many of the same people strongly support the right of the public to record police officers carrying out their duties as well.

    I take the view that when a camera is recording me in a public place, I don’t have an expectation of privacy. If you stick your camera in the window of my house, that’s something different. But if I’m walking down the street, or driving my car, and a camera catches me, I see that as no different from having an eyewitness do so. Except, of course, that the camera is likely to be more accurate. Indeed, if I was accused of a crime, and was nowhere near where it took place, I’d love to find a camera that had a clear picture of me not being where the crime took place!

    Similarly, I think the more law enforcement actions are on film, the better. That way we can verify true accusations and refute false allegations more effectively. There is a complaint of poor quality video taken by citizens. Newer devices will change that somewhat, though they won’t change point of view, or get citizens to hold the device more steadily. The best response here, I think, is the one many police departments are taking–record everything.

    So even though I’d rather not get caught rolling through that red light just after the yellow, I prefer the accurate record of the device, which I would trust over a human’s observation, and I also prefer the consistency.

    As for the original story–officers caught by the cameras–I would suggest that if there are valid exceptions, the department needs to deal with it. The Baltimore rules sound pretty restrictive to me, but then I’m no expert. I’d like to think the officer responding to a bank robbery without his lights on (for good reason, I assume) would not be fined for speeding. If he’s in his own car on private business, or if he’s going from one place to another on routine business, then he needs to obey the law, as do I.

    And whatever we’re doing in a public place, we might be seen, whether by camera or by human observer, and we should simply expect it.

    (HT: Dispatches)

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  • Life Application Bible Winner

    … is Jay Silvas, who is also the sole qualified entry.

    Despite having only this one entry, I’m happy with my plan for selecting a winner, because I think the comment itself was rather good, given the passage I selected. So congratulations to Jay. Send me your address (or I’ll request it soon), and I’ll send you the coupon for your free Bible.