Threads from Henry's Web

Author: henry

  • Mainliners Stand Up!

    I use “mainliners” for lack of a better term. I’m a member of a United Methodist congregation, and it will probably shock many of my readers that it is, in United Methodist terms, a fairly conservative one. I’ll even be preaching one service there tomorrow.

    The problem I’ve found with mainliners is less that they don’t know what they believe, though they are often accused of that (sometimes justly), but that they sometimes have a hard time believing anyone else could believe something different. For example, in all of the United Methodist congregations of which I’ve been a member (three so far), and in fact generally all those I’ve visited as a teacher, there was a general acceptance of women as pastors. People would discuss the possibility of congregations having difficulty accepting a woman as pastor, but the overwhelming belief among the leadership was that those congregations would come along at some point, and no doubt at all that they should.

    Though there have been a wide variety of personal opinions about abortion and abortion rights, there is an overwhelming consensus against violence against abortion clinics and abortion providers and a certain discomfort with protesters holding up signs with mangled fetuses.

    While the views in the pew differ very often from more extreme views in Nashville (for non-Methodists, that is the center of Methodist boards and agencies), they also differ from fundamentalist churches and from far right politicians (and obviously far left).

    But there often seems to be very little action. We’re often willing to allow extremist viewpoints to dominate the representation of Christianity, and we don’t really want to stand up for who we are and why we believe that Christianity is not about the things that drives the American religious right. Now my point here is not that someone can’t be a Christian and hold right wing views on many topics. Rather I’m saying that those views don’t define Christianity, and it would me a good idea to let people know that there are Christians who differ. Nor should this be limited to political issues, but should reflect theological issues as well.

    I was reminded of this when I encountered PamBG’s blog. She is a Methodist pastor in the UK, and she wrote a post on sexism and the Methodist church, in which she said:

    We don’t take this theology seriously because we don’t hold it. However, ‘complimentarianism’ is held by many Christians in the United Kingdom including the growing ‘New Frontiers’ denomination. Complimentarianism is ‘preached’ by the Calvinist theologian John Piper who seems to be increasingly popular with many younger Christians in the UK as well as in the US.

    I think she’s right, and she’s right not just for British Methodism, but also for American Methodism. There’s a certain arrogance in failing to take seriously movements in other churches, but I suspect there’s more complacency. We’re used to being the second largest protestant denomination here in the U.S. (I don’t know what excuse our British brethren have, but hopefully it’s better than ours!). At the same time we’re in continuous decline. Some people think liberal religion will inevitably decline. Now I prefer to be called a passionate moderate, but I draw the “L” word often enough to at least embrace it with one arm. I’m really talking to everybody who’s to the left of the Southern Baptist Convention, however, moderates, liberals, mainliners, progressives, and any other set I may have missed.

    I don’t think liberal religious will inevitably decline, unless its own adherents fail to take it seriously. There are several ways to carry out this failure. One is to assume that one is the voice of the future and thus that everyone else will doubtless follow along as they evolve to new social heights. There is, however, no certainty of that.

    Another way is to assume that Christianity, as such, is of no great value. If the adherents don’t consider it valuable, it will inevitably decline.

    A third way is to ignore what everyone else is doing because we know where we’re going. But we don’t live in isolation. It’s quite possible that many of the nasty things we pride ourselves on not doing will become the norm while we’re not paying attention. That would be a tragedy, but with our current behavior, I think it would be one we richly deserve.

    Even if, especially if your positions differ from the noisy types, this is a good time to stand up and be counted.

  • Some Beautiful Fractals

    . . . and from the sarcastic to the beautiful.

    Christine at Quiet Paths regularly posts beautiful pictures. This time she outdid herself with a fractal pattern that is truly gorgeous, titled simply Blue Fractal. I recommend you go take a look.

  • Teach the Controversy about Geocentrism

    In my previous post The Danger of Teaching the Controversy, I suggested that one of the problems with teaching the controversy was just which controversies one should teach. There are always plenty of crackpot theories floating around not to mention sound attempts to modify existing theories. These need to be tested by scientists using scientific methods with accountability through peer review.

    In discussing this, I said the following:

    More importantly, however, let’s consider how this “teach the controversy” principle would work in public schools. Should science teachers be asked to teach the controvery on geocentrism? I know some people are just about to explode on that one. “Nobody believes that any more, or at least only a few kooks.” Well, that may be true, though I believe there’s even a kook with a PhD who tries to teach geocentrism. But this does illustrate the problem. We argue for teaching the controversy on creation and evolution or on intelligent design and evolution, but we are unwilling to invoke the same phrase for all controversial issues.

    And to prove my point, one Mark Wyatt posted this comment:

    “…Should science teachers be asked to teach the controvery on geocentrism? …”

    Yes.

    And Here are the recommended text books.

    Mark

    Well, well, well. Though I will often debate with people who probably should be ignored, even I will not bother debating geocentrism. But I think my point is made. Theories need to be tested scientifically before becoming part of the curriculum. No exceptions should be made, even for especially controversial ones, or we will dilute education. There really isn’t any idea so stupid that it can’t find advocates somewhere!

    For those who believe someone is being suppressed here, note that even a person so far out there as to advocate geocentrism has two books published and a web site. It’s getting very difficult to suppress ideas. The problem that creationists and others have is that it is also getting extremely difficult to blunt criticisms of dumb ideas.

  • Mother Theresa and Crises of Faith

    A friend e-mailed me the link to Mother Teresa’s Crisis of Faith. Although they use the singular “crisis,” that one crisis was one she lived with for a long time.

    I have to say that I have ample sympathy, not to mention empathy with people with doubts from time to time. I think God leaves us with an abundance of questions. Standing back and thinking in “theologian mode” that seems like an excellent scheme to make us grow spiritually. Living through it seems just simply annoying.

    It does remind me how much I dislike prosperity theology. Besides promising people something that is false–not all, or even most, followers of Jesus will be wealthy–it also encourages people to deny doubts and troubles in order to appear to be “real, faith filled” Christians.

    When our son was in his fight with cancer, from which he ultimately died at age 17, there were those who felt that if we had the right amount of faith, God would heal our son. It’s an interesting feeling to not only struggle with the reality of losing a child, but to also face the implicit accusation that it’s your fault because you don’t pray correctly or with enough faith.

    I suspect the faith that is without any doubts of being shallow. Trust and endurance are separate things. Faith, however, is not so absolute as some would like to make it.

  • Christian Carnival CLXXXVI

    . . . has been posted at Chasing the Wind.

  • Jena, LA: A Town in Turmoil

    Newsweek story here. I wish I was surprised at such racism, but I’m not. In many places it’s just below the surface. (HT: Pursuing Holiness.)

  • Campaign Finance, Enforceability, and Free Speech

    It has become fairly well established in current law, as I understand it, that election financing can be regulated quite substantially without violating free speech. Some of the boundary areas are not so well defined, and regulation of those who are not connected organizationally to any candidate has been held unconstitutional in at least some cases.

    Recently, a liberal blogger filed a complaint against Fred Thompson for conducting activities that were inappropriate for an undeclared candidate. (HT: First Read [MSNBC].)

    Now I’m not a supporter of Fred Thompson for president. I think it is vanishingly unlikely that I will vote for him. Nonetheless, I think that campaign finance reform is an area where we have taken a situation that was problematic, and made it much worse through legislation. Having politicians bought and paid for by various special interests, whether they are corporations, unions, or large special interest organizations is something that should concern us all.

    That, and reducing the cost of elections, is the impetus behind campaign finance reform. We are told that if we keep individual contributions small and limit total expenditure, we will somehow make elections better. Well, it hasn’t happened. What we now have is a kind of game between the politicians to see who can get the biggest boost not allowed to his opponent from the existing laws. And those laws are not very clear, precise, or logical. What exactly is the difference between testing the waters and campaigning, anyhow? Sure the law tries to give criteria, but frankly those criteria look to me like an invitation to lengthy debate and possibly litigation, which is, in fact, what has happened in many cases.

    I doubt that any amount of campaign finance reform is going to work, short of the voters deciding to hold politicians accountable for what they say and what they do. I know, I’ve said that about just about everything that we try to do about politicians. But it seems to me that there is nothing that could not be resolved through responsible voting, and at the same time there is no solution to corruption in elections if we do not have responsible voting citizens. All we have done through campaign finance reform and term limits is spread the corruption around and put different labels on it.

    There are those who are saying simply that this is the law, and Fred Thompson ought to obey it. But is Fred Thompson truly testing the waters, or is he a real candidate? A great deal of the accusations against him stem from his collecting too much money–something that indicates popularity, and his position near the lead. But he has not, in fact, done all those things the other candidates have, and I don’t think we can make assumptions about the result.

    Do we generally care if it’s just the law? I’m guessing that some of the folks who think that the election laws are “just the law” and we should live with them don’t take the same approach to immigration. There the laws are broken and need to be fixed, and we shouldn’t criminalize the people who are living within them. Now you may think these are unfair comparisons, but I have a specific point on which I think they are parallel. We each have some area of the law which we think is so messed up that even honest people doing their best to live lawfully find themselves entangled.

    When a law results in otherwise honest people becoming lawbreakers, we should at least reexamine it to see if it’s doing what it should be doing. I think this has happened in the case of immigration. There are areas where workers are unavailable legally, and so people have gotten calloused about hiring them illegally. At a certain point enforcement, while attractive, is unlikely to be successful within a reasonable expenditure of resources. Reform of the law is necessary, and one of the aims of reform must be enforceability.

    Similarly I think our election laws have gotten way off course. We are now entrusting a government that can’t be trusted to count ballots properly with monitoring finances and keeping them honest. I think that too much of the energy of a campaign now goes into satisfying legal proprieties. At the same time there are interesting loopholes. A person can spend as much of his own money as he desires, creating an opening favoring incredibly rich candidates.

    Perhaps disclosure should be the law, thus allowing the voters to see where a candidate is getting his money. But without responsible voters–the ultimate enforcement in this case–that isn’t going to do much good.

    I would say finally that the line between actually campaigning for office, political commentary, and political advocacy is a dangerous one. Personally, despite what the courts have ruled, I think we took a dangerous step when we first regulated speech even in elections. But when we step even further over that line, it becomes even more dangerous. Even though some of the nastiest material in an election comes from third parties, often folks we can’t be sure are unconnected to a candidate, I think that speech must be protected. Again, responsible reading and listening is the key.

  • How Not to Respond to Bad Reviews

    As a writer and public speaker, albeit on a small scale, I found this story on the Panda’s Thumb amusing. Apparently Dr. Stuart Pivar, who appears to have no particular qualifications in the field, has written a book about giving “structuralist/developmental interpretation of evolution.”

    As authors will do from time to time, Pivar then sent a review copy to PZ Myers, whose review was anything but positive. Pivar sent him a revised copy, which resulted in another unfavorable review, to put it mildly. Now, my fellow authors, what do you do when you get an unfavorable review? You learn what you can from it, and if it’s truly malicious and not at all constructive, you suck it in and go on. When you present ideas to the public, you live with the possibility–no, the near certainty–that someone isn’t going to like them.

    In the case of LifeCode: The Theory of Biological Self Organization, the author shows no qualifications for writing the book, and the reviewer is extremely well qualified, thus suggesting who should be heard and who no. Besides, $60.00 for a 164 page book is just a bit out of range. Specialty books written for a scholarly audience sometimes are priced in that range, but that doesn’t apply here.

    Finally, any author who sues a reviewer should assume that any positive review he ever gets can be discounted. He has tried to apply intimidation, and cannot be relied upon.

  • A Christian Response to Wiley Drake

    I’ve been trying to write a good response to Rev. Wiley Drake who is calling for imprecatory prayers against specific people at Americans United for Separation of Church and State. I haven’t really managed to express my feelings yet. This is not about disagreements about church and state, it’s about a proper Christian response to opponents. There are times when one has to express oneself forcefully, yet there are certain things we should not do.

    But Through a Glass Darkly has a post Imprecatory Prayer Today that expresses what I’d like to say extremely well. This issue also illustrates, and the post discusses, some of the wrong ways to use scripture.

  • Ben Witherington on Hermeneutics

    This seems to be my day for linking, both on my threads blog and here. Ben Witherington has written an excellent basic post on hermeneutics. I’m particularly interested because of his illustrations taken from Revelation. In my study guide to Revelation, I recommend Witherington’s commentary as “the best commentary on Revelation for the serious student that is available today.”

    Witherington lists three principles: 1) What it means is what it meant, i.e. the meaning is in the text; 2) Context is everything; and 3) Genre matters. I’d love to say one is more important than the other, but there may well be no “greatest of these.”

    In this post Witherington demonstrates the clear exposition that makes his commentary the powerful resource that it is.