Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Wondering About Executive Pay

    I’ve been fighting a nasty cold this week, and thus blogging and reading less on the internet and watching much more TV than usual. The experience has reinforced my low opinion of the value of television news as information.

    But this really, truly is going to be a short post. I mean it.

    There are lots of good questions regarding the auto industry bailout, such as why we’re willing to bail out the financial industry but not the auto industry. How about doing none of the above?

    But here’s my question. What is sustaining the high rate of executive pay? We have very highly paid executives, making in the millions, riding companies down to failure. It seems to me one could hire a recent business school grad, for example, who would be willing to ride the corporation down in flames for considerably less money. If these guys were that much smarter, i.e. as smart as their pay would suggest, one would think they would have greater success.

    There seems to be something other than the market working here, but I can’t quite see what it is. Perhaps it’s simply a disconnect between the boards that hire the executives and the people who don’t buy the product. But normally that kind of reward should come from some kind of great performance.

    In reality, of course, the amounts of executive pay are just a minor portion of the money that is being poured into bailouts. But the principle, I think, may be much larger. High rewards are being paid for failure. As consumers and as voters, that is something we need to oppose, irrespective of the amounts of money involved.

  • The Jonah Problem Redux

    Bruce Alderman wrote an interesting post today on what has to be somewhere close to my favorite book of the Bible–Jonah.  He referenced an earlier post of mine from my Threads blog, but I’m not really commenting on that part.  I should also note that while I call Jonah somewhere close to my favorite book, that is a comment that causes my students in real life to burst forth with gales of laughter, since I have labeled way too many passages as my favorites.

    But the thing about Jonah is that there are so many different things you can get from it.  One key element is the way in which people get hung up on the miracle of the great fish, even though pretty much nobody would claim that’s the point of the book.  The great fish is largely a literary device to move the character forward.  You have the twist of Jonah heading off to the Spanish coast (to use an anachronistic name) but then winding up closer to Nineveh than when he started.  It’s an interesting note on the idea of running away from God.

    Bruce focuses on the hardship in which God places Jonah.  Often we’re afraid to comment on such things, but is God really being fair here?  He calls Jonah to go to Nineveh, makes him preach this unpopular message, and then turns and makes him into a false prophet.  I’m pretty certain we’re supposed to read that subtext in the story; I doubt a Jewish audience would miss it.

    So you have the intertwining of several messages at this point.  First, there is the message that God cares about people who are not Jews.  If, as is probable, Jonah was written during the time after the exile, this attitude to foreigners may well stand in opposition to the official position reflected in Nehemiah’s activities.

    Second, there is God’s focus on compassion over vengeance or judgment.  No Jew of the period would imagine that Nineveh hadn’t deserved destruction.  (Note also that if the general dating I referenced earlier is correct, Nineveh had already been destroyed at the time the book was written, making it an interesting “what-if” type of story.)

    Finally there’s the notion of the call of God on a person, and just how that may work out for the one who is called.  I wonder if Jews might have seen in this a bit of the impact of their call or chosenness on their own lives.  Being God’s chosen has not always been particularly pleasant for the Jewish people!

    I like to bring up Jonah when talking about spiritual gifts because inevitably someone is bound to comment on how nice it would be to be a prophet.  I have to suggest they think again.  Prophets don’t necessarily live happy lives.

    When teaching about how to study the Bible I use the phrase “the Jonah problem” in another way, however, which focuses on what Jonah does outside the city.  He’s waiting to see what God will do.  His interest is in the destruction of the city–or not.  So he hangs out waiting for God to act, when it turns out that God has already acted, but not in the expected way.  I define this “Jonah problem” as “looking for the wrong miracle.”

    I like to connect Jonah with Jeremiah 18.  Jeremiah is another excellent example of a prophet called into a very unpleasant situation.  He has to live in a city under siege and preach surrender, thus getting all the patriots up in arms against hm.  In Jeremiah 18 God provides him a vision to explain how it is that God can allow Jerusalem to be destroyed when he had earlier made an eternal promise to David.  (See Psalm 89:3-4, for example.)  God makes the claim there that he gets to change his mind.

    What I see in Jeremiah 18 is a fairly clear pointer to God’s major concern in prophecy.  We tend to look at prophecy as a way of learning what is going to happen.  God’s use of prophecy is to change people’s behavior.

    If a parent tells a child that he will not get to watch TV tonight unless he cleans his room, it is not the parent’s intent to inform the child as to what his evening will be like.  Rather, the parent wishes to get the child to clean his room.  If the room is cleaned, nobody becomes annoyed when the child gets his TV time.

    Perhaps we should consider giving God the same latitude.

  • On Bundling Tourist Attractions

    The Christian Post reports that the Cincinnati Zoo was forced to quit bundling its tickets with those to the Creation Museum in Petersburg, KY. This has been blogged to death all around the internet, and I’m going to join in ganging up on the story.

    According to the Creation Museum’s founder, Ken Ham, however, the zoo received hundreds of complaints, many of which were opposed to the faith and ideas that the museum presents.

    “It’s a pity that intolerant people have pushed for our expulsion simply because of our Christian faith,” Ham said, expressing disappointment in the zoo’s decision but also understanding of its perspective.

    I want to pick on a couple of points in that one.

    First, in calling opponents of this deal “intolerant people” Ken Ham accepts to bizarre modern notion that a lack of endorsement or assistance constitutes intolerance. I don’t regard those who refuse to give money to my church as intolerant. I don’t regard those who refuse to give money to a political candidate they oppose as intolerant. Bundling tickets is sharing value. It’s not intolerant to fail to do so, neither is it intolerant to oppose doing so.

    Second, the problem here is not the Museum sponsor’s “Christian faith.” It’s their completely untenable scientific ideas which their Museum is designed to promote. I’m a Christian. More importantly folks like Dr. Kenneth Miller and Dr. Francis Collins are Christians. It’s not the Christian faith that’s the problem, it’s the particular unscientific views of Answers in Genesis that are the problem.

    The Museum pushes young earth creationism, which requires a wholesale rejection of the bulk of modern science either directly or in its implications. Of course, we don’t see them rejecting all the technology that’s based on atomic theory when they reject radiometric dating. That would be impractical. But it’s implied.

    In bundling tickets, the Cincinnati Zoo was, in my opinion, giving too much tacit recognition to a museum that should be treated as outside the bounds of scientific discourse. There is simply no redeeming value in it at all. Now note that I don’t say it should be closed, or that its sponsors should be imprisoned, but I do say that they should not be treated as scientists engaged in the endeavor of bringing science to the public.

    One of the great negative side-effects of post-modernism has been this idea that all ideas are somehow equal and that we are intolerant if we don’t treat them as such. It goes hand in hand with the view that if we allow the expression of all sides of an issue, giving them equal time, we have somehow properly covered that issue.

    My view, on the contrary, is that ideas have to earn their place at the table. People who espouse unpopular ideas should be prepared to do the work of getting them to that place. The Creation Museum presents propaganda for a viewpoint that has never earned its place at the table, and indeed has repeatedly demonstrated that it doesn’t deserve such a place. An organization that is engaged in science should not even appear to endorse it.

    David at He Lives takes quite a different position than I do. He says:

    Ken Ham’s (silly) creation museum and the Cincinnati Zoo had a joint Christmas promotion—buy a ticket to one, see both. Now that is an odd, strange-bedfellows sort of pairing—but so what? People who wanted to visit both attractions could save a little money, and both places get a piece of the pie, including potential visits to their respective gift shop and restaurant cash cows. A win-win.

    Of course I risk having David tell me I have my “panties were bunched around his eyeballs” as he did of James Leach, but I agree much more with Leach. These are not merely two tourist attractions. I’m betting that neither institution would claim that as their primary purpose. The Creation Museum has as its goal religious proselytization, and the Zoo, one would hope, has an educational purpose.

    I would suggest that this was not the pairing of two tourist attractions, both of which were harmless. I would see it much more as similar to Disney World offering a bundled package with a tour of some whorehouses.

    But I’m sure I’m just over the top. I take both my science and my faith seriously. Because I take my faith seriously, I wouldn’t want my church contributing in any way to the Creation Museum. Because I take science seriously, I don’t want any scientific institution or group to contribute in any way to the Creation Museum.

  • Christian Carnival CCLIII Has Been Posted

    . . . at parables of a prodigal world.  Go and enjoy!

  • Signs and Wondering

    Over the last few weeks I have heard many stories of people who see certain events in their lives as signs of one thing or another. In fact, I could probably say the same thing about just about any period of time during my life. People are constantly seeing signs.

    Of course there is always a problem interpreting the sign. In fact, in the majority of cases, the person who reports something they thought was a sign also say that they are wondering just what the sign means. These signs can be quite simple things, such as meetings that failed, an actual sign seen on the highway when one is thinking of a particular topic, receiving a payment (or not), and so forth.

    I’m reminded of the great scene in the final volume of the Chronicles of Narnia (The Last Battle) in which the ape is trying to convince the donkey to wear a lion skin, which the donkey thinks is a very bad idea. Suddenly there is a thunderclap, which the donkey takes as a sign that he should not wear the skin. The ape, however, is quicker and says that he was about to say that if the donkey should wear the lion skin, Aslan should send a thunderclap.

    Which presents the problem of interpreting signs–they are so tremendously flexible. The most common temptation is to use a sign to justify a decision that we already intended to make. A close second is the use of a sign to convince someone else that God is on our side in an argument.

    Now I don’t have any problem with us using stories to shape the expression of our decisions. I think many people, myself included, need to create some sort of narrative to go with a decision. I also know that it’s a fact that often some event that I regard intellectually as unrelated, nonetheless pushes my mind onto a different track. At the same time I do know that the event is not a good reason for taking a particular course of action.

    Signs can be a great deal of fun if you treat them largely as a stimulus to creative thinking, but they can be very dangerous things if you take them too seriously. As a general rule, the signs are more difficult to interpret than the original data.

  • This is Disgusting

    Here’s another incident of mandatory religion in the Air Force (HT: Metacatholic).

    Besides the fact that it is quite improper for the Air Force to provide mandatory religious indoctrination, this program clearly denigrates the faith of many who would disagree with a number of elements of the presentation.

  • Biblical Studies Carnival XXXVI

    I violate my vow against reading or linking to Jim West to link to the latest Biblical Studies Carnival XXXVI, which is quite good in spite of because of its snarkiness.

    There’s a lot of good stuff there, much of which is about SBL.

  • With No One As Witness

    I first encountered Elizabeth George’s work through the videos of the Lynley series.  My experience is that the movie version is never up to the quality of the book, so in this case I was quite hopeful as I turned to the books for the first time.

    I was not disappointed.  Elizabeth George presents character in a wonderful way, and presents excellent detail on a variety of persons who may be of interest to the reader.  As always, I’m interested in the evidence presented, and whether it truly points to the person who turns out to be guilty.  The ideal mystery, in my view, keeps me from being certain of the guilty party until the very end, but when the actual perpetrator is presented, makes me feel a bit foolish for not having realized it. Thus failure can come either in the form of an easily guessed solution or a solution that doesn’t make sense even after it’s presented.

    In With No One As Witness, neither of these is a problem.  There are multiple plausible suspects introduced through the earlier portion of the story, but the list is whittled down as the story progresses.  The characters present detailed enough personalities that the reader can actually ask whether that person’s personality fits the profile for the crime.

    I will definitely be reading more of these books, probably starting with the next one in the series, and then moving back toward the earlier volumes.  I prefer the written word to video in any case.  It’s nice to relax and watch a video, but I have never encountered a screen adaptation that really matches the experience of reading a good mystery.

  • CEV Review Video

    The following is a video review of the CEV:

    For more details, see the MyBibleVersion.com detail page for the CEV.

  • Um, No Thanks, Not like You

    Al Qaeda’s #2 has called on Americans to embrace Islam, presumably his version. Um, no thanks. Even melting down, we’re better off.

    Oh, and by the way, Muslim calls to embrace Islam bring memories of Muslim conquest, not to mention recent terror attacks, just as Christian calls to convert the whole Muslim world bring back the crusades.