Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Photo and Haiku at Quiet Paths

    Every so often Christine’s photos and/or Haiku are so good that I just have to call your attention to them. Stairways is great.

  • Two Good Things from Church

    My pastor (First United Methodist Church, Pensacola) today caught my attention in a special way two different times.  The first was when he announced the reading for his sermon.  We had already read the gospel lesson, and the Psalm was included in the call to worship.

    He then said that we needed to take the opportunity more often to read extended pieces of scripture, after which he read all of Genesis 37.  I really enjoyed hearing that entire chapter read.  He built a good sermon on it as well, dealing with living our lives according to some narrative.  As Christians, he said, we should be living our lives according to the narrative of scripture.  That is, of course, much too great of an oversimplification (redundancy-r-us!), but it gets the basic idea.

    Early in the message he also paused for a moment to tell the congregation that he had profound pity on those who do not read the Bible regularly.  I also pity those Christians who have no regular program of Bible reading and study.

  • Edwards: Is Marital Fidelity Strictly Personal?

    I have posted before on the sex scandals involving Larry Craig and David Vitter. Now with the admission of infidelity by John Edwards, we have yet another sex scandal.

    One response, as is often the case with marital infidelity, is to claim that this is strictly a personal issue, one between him and his wife. And the spouse is certainly the primary person who is wronged. If John Edwards (or David Vitter or Larry Craig before him) were private individuals, their deeds would be a private matter to be settled privately. (One must note that unlike Edwards, so far as I know, both Craig and Vitter violated laws, while Edwards violated only his marriage vows.)

    But Edwards is a public person, who has sought public office multiple times. He does not claim that marriage vows are temporary or optional. In public he portrays a family man. I don’t think infidelity in that case is strictly personal. Whether or not one fulfills one’s vows is of paramount importance in judging integrity.

    I have certain standards for sexual morality. I claim to be moderate, am regularly called liberal, but my personal standards are rather old fashioned. I believe in marital faithfulness. I don’t believe in pre-marital sex. If I violate those standards it should (and doubtless would) have an impact on the way people regard me as a Christian teacher and leader in my church.

    But both in and outside of the church we seem to have accepted a curiously bipolar attitude toward sexual sins. On the one hand we are scandalized and yell and scream about them a great deal. On the other, we excuse them in practice. I can find few people in churches, for example, who will say they believe that premarital or extramarital sex is OK, but when it is practiced, the consequences are quite limited unless the person is a very public figure.

    It seems as thought we know it’s wrong, but we also know that we are weak, and think “there but for the grace of God go I.” This is similar to early problems in dealing with drunk driving. Police, judges, and juries so often knew that they were guilty of the same thing from time to time, and were aware that they might just as well have been the defendant, so they went easy on what was regarded as a human weakness. Mothers Against Drunk Driving waged quite a campaign to make driving under the influence a truly shameful deed before it was treated as seriously as it deserved. (You’ll still find some cases where good old boys let one another off on this one.)

    Marital infidelity, of course, doesn’t kill as many people as does driving under the influence. But when one gets married, one does make a commitment, and normally that commitment is for life. If you can make a commitment “until death do us part” and then casually violate it, it says something about your integrity. When you cover it up, it not only says something about your integrity, I believe it is morally corrosive. You become practiced at lying.

    I believe that a willingness to ignore one covenant, that of marriage, is a significant factor in deciding whether the person in question will be faithful to another covenant, for example, the oath of office. Will the person who swore to be faithful to his wife, and then strayed while covering it up regard the oath to “uphold and defend the constitution of the United States” any more seriously?

    In an atmosphere where lies and half-truths are so common, it may seem very odd to make a big deal out of this one particular issue. But I would suggest that if we drop out of the search for integrity simply because so many people have failed to provide it, we will continue to enable our politicians to become less and less honest with us.

    I do not believe marital fidelity is strictly personal when it is committed by a person seeking the trust of others. Violation of a lifetime vow is a very bad indicator of personal integrity.

    PS: I commend the mainstream media for waiting for confirmation on this one. I rarely find them commendable, but they did much better than average here.

    Crossposted to RedBlueChristian.com.

  • Redistribution: Wealth and Responsibility

    I blogged a couple of days ago about redistribution of wealth, and then I read this post at Pursuing Holiness that discusses responsibility.

    Putting the two together it occurred to me that both are cases of redistribution–one of responsibility and the other of money.

    In censorship, we take the responsibility for choosing away from the individual and we give it to someone else, thus reducing their choices. They don’t have the opportunity to do the wrong thing, or at least the thing we have defined as wrong, and they have one less choice.

    We don’t have little green pieces of paper marked in “responsibilities,” but the change occurs just the same.

    The two are very directly connected. Consider medical payments, for example. When more of my medical bills are paid for by someone else, I have less choices regarding my care, and even how I care for myself. I recall when I was in the Air Force, I had to work with the flight surgeons on my health. I couldn’t just say, “No, I’m not going to do that” when given orders by the doctor.

    We don’t move that directly in the civilian world, but we do already see the signs in our handling of smoking. People who don’t smoke ask a very valid question. Why should we pay more for health care in order to support the bad habit of people who do? The answer? Reduce or eliminate their ability to make that bad choice.

    If I were less concerned about individual freedom or responsibility, that one would go over well for me. I don’t smoke, and I never have. But wait a second! I’m overweight. No matter how much I may want to criticize smokers for risking their health, I have done the same thing in a different way. (I’m finally working diligently on this, by the way, nearly 20 years after I left the service and started to let myself slip, but that doesn’t change the basic point.)

    When we talk about those over-the-top politicians who want to restrict what McDonalds should sell, we need to remember the basic arguments that are used to restrict smoking. They’re going to apply.

    I’m not advocating a complete elimination of government payment. In fact, I’m pretty sure we’re going to end up with near universal health care in this country, and as a result we’re going to face interference with our lifestyles. I still think we need to look that way, hopefully with a multiple payer system rather than a single payer government program, and do so soon, since the longer we wait the more radical the solution is going to be. The basic reason is that, however much we pay lip service to individual responsibility, we ultimately don’t want to let people bleed to death for want of health care.

    But we need to look very carefully at what we’re giving away and what we’re getting. Count the cost. Despite political promises, none of this stuff comes without a cost.

  • Christian Carnival CCXXXVI Posted

    . . . at Brain Cramps for God.  Lots of food for thought.  Oh for more reading time!

  • Barack Obama’s Income Redistribution Plan

    In a recent ad we hear the following:

    “A windfall profits tax on big oil to give families a thousand-dollar rebate,” an announcer in the ad says.

    (Source: MSNBC.com.)

    The entire energy debate seems to have become a pandering game, with each candidate dulling any responsible suggestions he might make with various bribes to the public. McCain, who used to oppose off-shore drilling now supports it, and though he admits it’s more long term, he still brings it up in connection with current high gas prices. (I actually regard it as a short-term non-fix, because I believe “long term” should mean at least a century when we’re talking energy policy.)

    Obama seemed to resist this particular idea, though he will now allow it as part of a compromise. Which leads me to a digression. In reality, any candidate is going to have to compromise on the actual laws he will propose. Little of what is promised by either candidate in the campaign will actually happen. Why are we so shocked when a candidate suggests he would accept something he opposes generally as part of a compromise package? What should annoy us is that the candidates pretend they will be able to somehow govern without significant policy compromises.

    The problem here is that the debate is being framed in terms of managing gas prices. The capitalists among us should object to this, no matter how it is done. The way to reduce the price is to either increase supply or reduce demand, and the best means to accomplish that is the natural market forces. There are those who will object that foreign cartels change this equation. But in actuality capitalism does not call for people to be required to sell. That is simply one aspect of supply.

    We can artificially push down the price of gas temporarily, but that will not solve our problems, because all of the factors that push gas prices up will still be present. The oil-drilling idea has the advantage that it will eventually increase supply. It will be useless (except psychologically) in the very short term, provide some value in the longer term, but will not provide a truly long term solution in my opinion. Nonetheless I would support limited drilling provided reasonable environmental concerns are dealt with.

    High gas prices are the best possible thing for the long term because they will push us to change the way in which we consume and produce energy. There are many technologies becoming available, and as gas prices increase, they will become more and more economical. This is a good thing. If we artificially hold the prices down now, such an adjustment will have to be made sometime, and the longer we wait, the more painful it will be. It’s time now to do more than talk about breaking our addiction to oil.

    But back to Obama’s redistribution plan. This is classic redistribution of wealth. Take the money away from the oil companies that are making profits, and give it to people who are having to buy the high-priced gas. This has many of the hazards of price controls, only it actually won’t work. The oil companies will find a way to get the money back, and a couple of years from now we’ll realize that the rebates did nothing more than attempt to buy our votes. (Buying my vote was unnecessary for Obama. Despite my strong opposition for his gas tax/rebate plan, McCain still annoys me even more.)

    The whole notion of “windfall profits” is fairly ridiculous in any case. Just what is the windfall? The price of energy has gone up. I remember this discussion in a public policy toward business class when I was in college relating to excess profits. (Looking at the current situation, I suspect “excess profits” would be the better economic description for the situation. I fail to see the windfall, but perhaps I’m just not looking at it right.)

    Excess profits appear to be fairly well defined (see Wikipedia for a decent, if rather abbreviated discussion). The problem is that while the definition is clear, calculating what would be an excess profit is much less clear, and in practice the term “excess profit” becomes synonymous with “windfall profit” and simply refers to any profit the person speaking doesn’t think the one making the profit should have.

    Note in addition that very few people talk about the oil company profits in terms of percentages (see this report to congress for some numbers, though I haven’t checked them), because those would sound much less overwhelming. It’s easy to make any large company’s profits sound obscene, even when the return is not really all that far out of line with other industries. This is not to say the oil companies are not profiting. It’s just that I don’t think it’s bad for them to do so.

    In the case of oil we have a choice similar to what we have in other industries–don’t buy their product. In this case I have to add “as much”, and in addition note that reducing our consumption will take time. And lest anyone think I’m suggesting something that I will not do myself, let me note that fuel costs have cut into my business severely. I have had to change the way I plan my days to avoid certain driving in order to handle the higher gas prices.

    I believe we need to feel this pain now in order to change the way we produce and consume energy. I am disappointed with congress and with both our presidential candidates, though I’m not surprised at their action. We, the voters, are demanding that they behave irresponsibly, and they’re just doing what we ask. No, not what we say we want. What our actions show we want.

    Unfortunately, what many of us want is lower gas prices tomorrow. What we’ll get is an even worse problem a few years in the future.

  • Fallible Bible

    I also Thank God for Blessing us with a Fallible Bible.

  • Quick Note on The Golden Compass

    I ended up with a copy of this almost by accident, and have written some notes. While I’m not overly impressed by it, I see no reason for the controversy. Notes are here.

  • New Creation-Evolution Site

    Laura links to a new site on creation and evolution written by someone she knows, and I wanted to promote the link to an actual post. I must say that I have substantial areas of disagreement with the post she directly links on thermodynamics, but I’m so involved on the theological side right now, which is after all closer to my area of expertise, that I think I’ll lay off it for the moment.

  • An Answer for Mark: Death as a Divine Tool

    Mark responded to my post Dealing with the Theological Implications of Evolution, and in turn poses a question to me, well summarized in the last sentence of his last paragraph:

    What is the particular problem that is raised that Stegosaurus had a million or so years in the sun but now is no longer?

    Which reminds me that I get in the most trouble for the things I don’t say in a post. That question needs to be put into the context of the point I was trying to address in the post. Some Christians respond to evolution by saying that it doesn’t really make any difference. Genesis tells us that God created; evolution tells us how God created.

    Depending on your audience, that will mean substantially different things. In some ways I regret growing up and essentially completing my formal education as a young earth creationist. There are so many lines of inquiry I would have pursued. I don’t mean things that would have advanced knowledge generally, but that could have advanced my knowledge.

    At the same time, I understand how young earth creationists think, and telling them that evolution doesn’t make any difference is quite futile. You see a substantial part of the young earth creationist background involves an understanding of the fall. I’m not saying that every young earth creationist feels this way, but I personally haven’t encountered one who doesn’t.

    The fall of humanity happened at a specific historical point. There was no sin in the world before that, and there was sin afterward. The physical world suffered as a result of sin, and was, in fact, dramatically altered because physical death was introduced at that point. (Never mind how an ecology would function without death.) In the particular form in which I learned it, the deteriorating ages of the patriarchs in Genesis 5 & 11 indicates the deterioration of the very fabric of the universe, or at least of life, so that people became less and less long-lived as they separated from God.

    In that context, to say that evolution makes no difference theologically is nonsense. Evolution makes all the difference in the world. If God used evolution as his tool to create the world, not only is the chronology different, but the connection between sin and physical death is broken. There might be some deterioration of the world after sin, though no evidence of this is available, but the direct connection cannot exist.

    For people who hold the young earth creationist viewpoint, at least in the form I grew up with, evolution is a devastating blow to all they hold dear. If the fall did not cause deterioration, then how can redemption cause recreation? Remember here that they believe this does involve the physical world, all of creation (Romans 8:22). Everything from God’s personal care of everyone, to redemption, and finally to the life hereafter and the new creation falls under their system if evolution is true. The theological impact is massive.

    I would add a side note on the “gap theory” or “ruin and restoration creationism” which holds that the earth is very old, the same age as that held by mainstream science and by old earth creationists, yet that sin was brought to earth before the creation that occurred in Genesis 1. In their view sin caused death, but did so before Adam was created. Adam then participated in that death at the fall. For them successive extinction events can become successive acts of destruction by God intended to wipe out or punish evil. Evolution is still devastating to their theology and they would reject it vigorously.

    One other odd view is Bill Dembski’s view that death was introduced prospectively, i.e. God knew that evil would occur and dealt with it before the fact. Adam was thus responsible, even though he sinned much later. I blogged about it a bit here, and Dembski’s article can be found here. (Note that he has revised this several times, so quotes from it in any earlier articles may be wrong. I’ve tried to note the date, but I think I forgot a few times. I always used the version that was online as of the date I posted.)

    Old earth creationists and theistic evolutionists are in essentially the same place on this. Death must be seen as a natural part of the way the universe is designed, and death becomes God’s tool. I would say that the issue is even harder for old earth creationists. Let me digress for a moment to explain why.

    I’m not much impressed with the common argument that God didn’t create evil; God created Satan, who then rebelled. In other words, I don’t feel the separation between God taking action directly, God creating someone who has the option to take an action, or God creating a process that has that same effect. If God created Satan knowing he would do evil (a requirement if one accepts foreknowledge, which in the traditional sense I do not), then God is equally responsible. If God creates a world in which the holocaust can occur, he can’t evade responsibility. In scripture, I don’t see any great effort to avoid God’s responsibility for whatever happened. That seems to be mostly a later effort.

    Let me illustrate. Supposing I have responsibility for a group of children, and I let them loose in a room full of valuable but fragile items. I don’t set any parameters, but simply tell them to play and then I run off. I don’t come back, observe, and most importantly intervene when their play gets lively and the valuable items are broken.

    If the owner of the valuables comes to me and charges me with responsible, will he except the excuse that the children did it? I suspect not. I put the children there. I didn’t instruct them properly. I didn’t monitor them, and I didn’t intervene to stop them. I think most people would regard me as responsible for the breakage.

    In the same way I regard God as responsible for the universe. I think I have warrant to believe that God regards God as responsible for the universe.

    But the fact is that in my experience most people do not agree with me with regard to God. They do find “the devil did it” to exonerate God in some sense. In that context, I think the old earth creationists have a bit of a problem. As a theistic evolutionist I believe that God so ordered the universe that there would be processes that would bring about life and allow it to diversify. I must accept that God is thereby responsible for such things as scarcity of resources; no diversification would occur if there was no selective survival.

    The old earth creationist, it seems to me, must see God as creating an incomplete process. Variation and natural selections works some, but appears to be defective. Thus God allows the process to work and then steps in and creates greater variations from time to time. So God is not merely using a tool that is part of the fabric of the universe; he is also getting involved on a day to day (or more likely age to age or period to period basis. I think if they were consistent the same people who accept a devil based theodicy should regard this as God with dirty hands.

    I must restate, however, that I think theistic evolutions and old earth creationists are in the same boat on this one, and that evolution does not make a theological difference on this one point. But that is only true between old earth creationists and theistic evolutionists. Young earth creationists or ruin and restoration creationists would see it somewhat differently.