Daniel has an interesting post on E-Merging suggesting that we view the Bible as a conversation. He says:
In real conversations, one participant doesn’t just sit back and agree with everything being said. There are tensions and resolutions, and some questions are simply left unanswered.
I think this is an excellent approach to Bible study and is quite compatible with my notion of participatory Bible study, in which you get into, participate in, the story of God’s interaction with people.
Fareed Zakaria has an excellent Newsweek article on oil, The Real Story of Pricey Oil. In it he suggests that we need to get serious about reducing and stabilizing demand, and about developing new technology. He discusses the politics of oil production in a clear and straightforward fashion.
This is something to which we need to pay serious attention. The actual price of our consumption is much higher than what is evident at the gas pump.
Zakaria concludes:
If the president and Congress were to propose a powerful package of measures
I recall my first college English class when I informed the professor that I was going to write on patriotic elements in the poetry of Alfred Lord Tennyson. He made it clear that he would prefer a different author; for some reason Tennyson didn’t match up. He also made it clear he’d prefer a different theme, that he thought patriotic poetry was a less kind of poetry. The kind of battle between my professor and me continued through the semester and even to his critique of the paper (he graded it A-), in which he lamented my espousal of Tennyson’s themes. But I truly appreciated Tennyson and I still do.
I had a friend who was a musician. His pet peeve with me was my appreciation for Franz Joseph Haydn. My single favorite piece of music of any type and any period is Haydn’s Trumpet Concerto in E flat. My favorite oratorio is Haydn’s Creation. Now my friend would allow that those were acceptable music, but I also like Haydn’s concerti and symphonies as well, and he thought those had been produced by cookie cutter. Sorry! I still like them.
In art, I recall the day that a monument was put up at my alma mater to four students who had been killed in a car accident. I was working as a teaching assistant in a nearby private school, and remarked to my students that it looked to me more like someone had forgotten to haul out the garbage. The great art appreciaters, however, were ready to praise it as a great artistic accomplishment, and I was informed by a few folks that I was horrifyingly irreverent.
To extend this on literature, an area a bit nearer to my heart, there are a number of “classics” that I simply don’t find all that interesting or useful. In many cases I still regard them as important, simply because they have impacted many people. It just happens I don’t like them. After that first college English class, I was able to avoid further annoyance because of a change in academic requirements. I was allowed to take a course in literature in any major language offered, and I did so in French. Let me note that I didn’t enjoy reading Les Miserables in French or English. In political science I was assigned selections from Dostoevsky. Sorry! Not interested. I read what I had to, and I did find some value in it, but nothing that would make me put it on a “must read” list.
In fact, I started way back in college calling those “must read” lists “snob lists.” They simply reflect the personal tastes of one particular person, and I see no reason to regard their taste as particularly binding on me. Now I would note that if you can’t read the books on their list, or you haven’t tested the waters to see what you actually like and will benefit from, then perhaps you ought to work your way through a few. Note that I have read a bit of Dostoevsky and substantial amounts of Victor Hugo (the latter in French), and thus didn’t lay them aside without some consideration.
Now I hear the same sort of thing in terms of Bible translations. One should read the KJV because it’s superior literature. But why is the KJV superior literature. Even if I regard it as an excellent translation for its time and place and a major achievement, which I do, why should I now regard it as a superior translation? Literature professors and literary snobs will point to superior elements in its language and style, but superior for whom? I have never even been able to get these literary elitists to discuss the objective basis at all. It is, to them, simply obvious that what they appreciate in literature is superior. So what if other readers don’t really comprehend any of this additional value. It’s still superior.
And I can agree with them in one sense. For English professors and literary elitists, it probably is. I have to confess to appreciating the style of the KJV. But I have found that modern readers just don’t understand it. Even many of those who profess to love it and to think it’s the greatest, aren’t actually getting any value from those stylistic features. The passage may be wondrously translated, but it’s wondrously translated into something that simply flies right past most readers.
I could suggest that they all learn how to appreciate that sort of literature, get to know the vocabulary and the archaic grammar. After all, it’s also helpful in reading Shakespeare (another author who doesn’t make it to the top of my reading list). But my question is this: In today’s world is learning 17th century English a priority for my children and grandchildren?
The answer is, absolutely not! I would like them to be able to express themselves well in contemporary English and communicate with friends and neighbors. I would like them to be able to read well. I would like them to have the technical knowledge necessary for the modern world, especially computer literacy. Liberal arts are simply losing a race with time. It’s not that the goals of liberal arts are bad, it’s that culture is growing and changing, and there are lots of works of contemporary literature that need to be examined and read, but educators want to spend their time on a snob list of “things every literate person should have read.”
We would get much further in teaching our children to read if we dealt with the more important things–the things involved in current living first. That obviously includes reading and writing. After that, those who have the time and inclination can proceed to the literary antecedents of the things they deal with. I know that the literary crowd will bemoan the fate of those people who are not well acquainted with Shakespeare, or who don’t know the King James Bible, but history is moving forward and there are going to be allusions in current writing to things most folks have never read. One of the wonders of the internet is that we can look such things up quickly.
In practical terms, I’m saying that I’m going to read what I consider important, and I’m going to appreciate the art, literature and music that I appreciate (logicians, get off!), and when it comes time to vote on budgets, I’m going to be voting for people who are very practical and down to earth about their selection. (Warning: Don’t try to get rid of the arts; but consider contemporary material right alongside all those wonderful classics.)
Just to get a taste of what is available on the blogs covered by the Moderate Christian Blog Aggregator, let me give you a list of the most recent posts, in the order in which they appeared when I viewed the aggregator, with the exception of my own blogs. Note that blogs are randomized with each view.
I think that provides us with some interesting activity. I’m afraid I won’t have time to post a daily set of entries very often, but I thought it would be a good idea to take a current cross-section.
A little over a month ago (August 12, 2006) I started the Moderate Christian Blog Aggregator and the related blogroll. To get the ball rolling, I included my three blogs (three so I can segregate my areas of interest more easily) and one group blog to which I’m primary contributor. I also included my wife’s devotional group on Yahoo!. That made five initial sites. Since then we’ve added seven more. I certainly want this thing to get bigger, but I’m neither disappointed nor overwhelmed by that level of growth.
Here’s the blogroll as it is today:
I think that’s a pretty good gathering of sites for a start.
Note that there is no requirement in terms of linking for inclusion in the aggregator–just give me permission and your feed, using the form on the standards page, which also defines what I mean by moderate. It would be nice to have some links to the aggregator, but I believe it will gather those on its own. I do ask that those on the blogroll display the blogroll somewhere, either on a permanent page or their sidebar.
I am working on some better error control for the aggregator, and I also have a system that will simply list posts by date in the works, but I’m hesitant to implement it, because if we simply list posts by date, that heavily favors the frequently updated blogs, and in this case those are probably mine. Any feedback on this issue would be appreciated. At the moment I’m leaning toward implementing the second option, so a reader could choose simple listing by date, irrespective of source, or listing by source blog.
Thanks to all for participating, and I look forward to continued growth.
I have long been an advocate of permitting criticism of Christianity, because I think allowing such criticism is good for my religion. I have friends who would regard my religion as a delusion, and I encourage them to speak directly about what they believe. This is not a matter of commitment to legal free speech, though I do believe that the first amendment should be protected. That is an area in which I might even be regarded as extreme. I say this from inside the Christian faith. If we try to use legal or forceful means to blunt or eliminate criticism, we will be the poorer for it, intellectually and spiritually.
Now we have the remarks of Pope Benedict XVI. I already commented briefly on those, noting that I’m not too much of a fan of the pope, but nonetheless I did not off hand see anything wrong with his remarks that would justify the kind of reaction they are receiving. Despite the Pope’s apology I have not changed my view.
In an article I read yesterday, but from the September 25 issue of Newsweek, Jon Meacham said:
Much of the Regensburg address was a meditation on faith and reason, the roots of religiously inspired violence and the need for believers to see God as a figure of love. Roughly put, his argument was this: to Benedict, Islams conception of God so stresses Gods will that God can be understood to command the irrational.
The problem is with a quotation from Emperor Manuel II. As is usual, many people have brought up the crusades at this point. But one should consider the fact that Emperor Manuel’s situation was one of being invaded by Muslim conquerors. I deplore the religious justification of violence other than as self-defense, yet this emperor was defending himself. Again, I’m not an apologist for the crusades, but one must remember that Christian territories were being conquered by Muslim conquerors. I’m not an expert on the history of that period, but I am certain there were various justifications from both sides.
The Christian actions in the crusades should not mean that we can no longer have dialogue. True dialogue is also impossible when one cannot criticize.
Again, quoting from Meacham’s article:
Then why did Benedict quote the emperor in the first place? The most likely answer is that, no matter what the Vatican says now, the pope believes in having what the Catholic theologian and papal biographer George Weigel calls a hard-headed conversation
Psalm 104 has a distinct message about God’s creation that has stuck with me strongly since I first studied the passage in graduate school. I have previously posted links to my prior study of the text and structure of this Psalm, done more than 25 years ago. I’m starting from that point now.
When we deal with translation, the message can be presented in many ways. In this case it is presented through poetry. Previously, I worked with Psalm 46, showing how it has been presented in various ways, such as in Martin Luther’s hymn, “A Mighty Fortress is our God.” I then tried to convert the message of the Psalm into the form of an Italian sonnet, at which I can be said to be no better than rank amateur.
My point, however, is not to demonstrate my skill in transforming Biblical passages, rather it’s to suggest that we need to transform passages in various ways. For example, the message of Psalm 46 could be presented as:
I did some similar work with the story of Susanna from the apocrypha of Daniel. You can follow the links to related material there.
All of this falls under the “Share” portion of my Bible study method. I think that Bible students are often the weakest at sharing, but that sharing can be one of the strongest aspects of your approach to Bible study. Thinking of different ways of sharing the message makes you think more about what the message actually is, while getting reactions from others tests the accuracy of your read of the message. Too often our idea of understanding the Bible is reducing it to theological propositions, and then sharing those propositions with others.
Now don’t get me wrong here. Extracting theological propositions from your Bible study is not a bad thing. It’s just not the only thing. And sharing your theological propositions is not a bad thing either. But just as the Bible uses different ways of sharing, so you can use different ways of sharing. Consider that sharing part of your process of Bible study. It’s a way of exercising your understanding to discern good from evil (Hebrews 5:14).
So what about Psalm 104? Well, I think this is a good illustration of precisely this point. Elsewhere, I’ve written about the two creation stories of Genesis–1:1-2:4a & 2:4bff. Now there are a number of approaches to these stories. Some people think they turn up a major Bible contradiction, and thus claim the fact that there are two creation stories as a challenge to the Bible’s inspiration and authority. Others defend against this charge by challenging the idea that there are two stories, thus preventing any contradiction.
I have another suggestion: The story of God’s creation is much too broad and has way too many implications to be comprehended in any single telling. In Genesis 1, the theme is power and authority. God speaks and it happens. But at the same time God can seem very distant and other in that passage. Now these are part of the doctrine of God–transcendance. But what about God’s presence and care for us, immanence? Well, Genesis 2 and even the story of the fall in Genesis 3 present a God who is with us. Combine them, and we get a better picture of God than we would have had with either one. The stories, rather than contradicting, present two very different perspectives on one topic that’s large enough to allow both to present us with the truth of God and creation.
But there is yet more that God needs to present to us. In reading Genesis 1-11, one could get the impression of a generally receding God, one who is getting more and more distant from us. That would be a sort of gradual deism, God the creator who is no longer present. Enter another perspective–Psalm 104. God is here, God is present, God is concerned with everything. At the same time God is ultimately powerful. (It would be good to go read Psalm 104 from your favorite Bible version about now.
God’s power is shown in the first 8 verses. God is absolutely sovereign. God’s word sets the boundaries. The very foundations of the world (or the universe, as I understand it) are set by him. This part ties closely with Genesis 1–God of the powerful, absolute word.
But then we turn in verse 9 to God’s attention to detail. Everything is beautiful. Everything works together. This culminates with the beautiful exclamation:
(24) How marvelous are your works, O Lord!
You made them all wisely.
The earth is full of your created things.
This is the detailed attention, the God who is present, providing food for everyone. It may be hard for us to comprehend this, but for God, who is infinite, there is no prioritizing. He can be the powerful God who sets the earth on its foundation and commands the water to be in a particular place, while at the same time being concerned with the food for a single particular lion, or a nesting place for a particular bird. We can’t manage that, because for every bit of attention we give to one thing, something else suffers. But not so with God. And here we have this theological principle about God presented in poetic form.
But then we get down to the continuing nature of God’s presence.
(27) All of them look to you,
To give them their food on time.
(28) You give to them, so they may gather;
You open your hand, so they may be satisfied with good.
(29) You hide your face, and they are disturbed;
You bring their breath to an end,
And they return to their dust.
(30) You send forth your breath, and they are created;
So you renew the face of the ground.
It’s not just that God created, it’s that God creates. God is the ever-present creator. Every single move of every single subatomic particle is under God’s control. He doesn’t miss a thing. He doesn’t have a priority list. You are in no danger of falling off God’s radar screen, because nothing ever falls off of it.
That’s why I call Psalm 104 the third creation story. There are a few other passages, but I think this one neatly ties together Genesis 1 and 2 and gives us the perspective of a God who is constantly present.
Now the question I’m going to continue with in future posts on this topic is this: How do you share that concept in different ways? How do you catch the right way for you to really comprehend this and apply it? How can you find the right way for a friend?
I have liked John McCain for a long time, and now he has taken a stand on torture and interrogation. Chip Read on MSNBC’s first read comments on this as a matter of conscience. I’m amazed, despite everything that has already happend in the war on terror, that this is entirely an issue. I’m deeply disturbed that leaders in the administration have taken the stand that they have.
From the moral point of view this should be a no brainer. From the point of view of international politics, it should be a no brainer. I served as aircrew in the Air Force. Aircrew always face the possibility that they will be shot down and captured by the enemy. Don’t imagine me being wondrously heroic or anything. I didn’t feel threatened. But when your job is one in which you could get into that position you do give it a little thought.
One of the few bright spots in that horror we call war is the Geneva Convention. It’s more honored in the breach than otherwise, but it’s still a bright spot. We shouldn’t play with that. It’s wrong morally, and it’s dangerous politically. This is a place we need to listen to the international community and play good citizen on the world scene. When Christians support this sort of thing I truly have to wonder whether they’ve even passed the idea somewhere near their Christian principles.
There are times when we need to challenge the international community. When other countries supply money to terrorists, or make it easy for them to transfer it, that is a reason to take some sort of action. They’re aiding and abetting criminals.
But when they ask us not to torture, that’s a request for us to live up to our principles. True, many of these same countries will engage in torture. But if we don’t live up to a higher standard ourselves, we may come to the next stage–or the next–of this war on terror and find out that we have come more and more to resemble our opponents.
That’s too high a price to pay.
I’m planning to do some posting on translating and transforming Hebrew poetry over the next few weeks, so I want to start with a couple of links to my existing work on Psalm 104. I did a considerable study of the structure of this Psalm in graduate school. I’m not in a position to repeat the work I did then or even to reaffirm it, but I’m planning to work from the text that I prepared for that paper, and build from there.
Here are the major links:
The translation was prepared for technical purposes and not for general reading. The actual translation without the notes follows.
(1) Bless the Lord, O my inmost being!
0 Lord, my God, you are very great;
You are clothed with majesty and splendor.
(2) He spreads out light like a covering;
He stretches out the heavens as a tent.
(3) He fills his upper chambers with water;
He makes the clouds his chariot;
He travels on the wings of the wind.
(4) He makes the winds his messengers,
Fire and flame his servants.
(5) He established the earth on its foundations;
It shall not be moved forever and ever.
(6) The primeval ocean covered it like a garment;
The waters stood over the mountains.
(7) Prom your rebuke they fled;
From your thunderous voice they rushed away.
(8) They went up to the mountains, down to the netherworld chasms,
To the place which you appointed for them.
(9) You set them a limit which they cannot transgress;
They will not return to cover the earth.
(10) He sends forth springs in the wadis;
They flow between the mountains.
(11) He makes all the beasts of the field drink;
He makes the onagers shatter their thirst.
(12) Near them (the streams) the birds of heaven nest;
Among them the ravens give forth their voice.
(13) He waters the mountains from his upper chambers;
From the fruit of his work, the earth is well supplied.
(14) He brings forth grain for the animals;
And grass for those who serve man.
He indeed brings grain from the earth;
(15) And wine which gladdens the heart of man.
He indeed makes their faces shine with oil;
And bread, which strengthens the heart of man.
(16) The trees of the Lord have plenty;
The cedars of Lebanon which he planted,
(17) Where the birds make their nests;
As for the stork, her house is among their tops.
(18) The high mountains are for the mountain goats;
The rocky places are for the coneys.
(19) He made the moon for appointed times;
The sun knows when to go down.
(20) It darkens, and becomes night;
In it creep all the beasts of the thicket.
(21) The lions roar for their prey;
They seek their food from God.
(22) The sun rises, so they may be gathered,
So they may lie down in their dens
(2)) Man goes forth to his work,
And to his labor until the evening.
(24) How marvelous are your works, O Lord!
You made them all wisely.
The earth is full of your created things.
(25) This sea, great and wide across,
In which are uncountable creatures,
Living things, both small and great —
(26) There the ships travel;
Leviathan which you made,
Plays in it.
(27) All of them look to you,
To give them their food on time.
(28) You give to them, so they may gather;
You open your hand, so they may be satisfied with good.
(29) You hide your face, and they are disturbed;
You bring their breath to an end,
And they return to their dust.
(30) You send forth your breath, and they are created;
So you renew the face of the ground.
(31) Let the glory of the Lord. be eternal;
Let the Lord rejoice in his works —
(32) He who looks at the earth, and it trembles;
Who touches the mountains, and they smoke.
(33) I will sing to the Lord while I live.
I will sing to my God while I continue to exist.
(34) Let my song be pleasing to him,
I will rejoice in the Lord.
(35) Sinners shall be removed from the earth,
And the wicked will be no more.
Bless the Lord, O my inmost being!
I’ll be working from that basis on my various presentations of the content of this Psalm in different forms.
See also my recent note on Hebrew Poetry.
I have not been very excited about the vatican over the last few years, and I was not overjoyed when the current pope was elected, but in general since I’m not a catholic, it’s not something I get very excited about.
But the current round of protests about the Pope’s quotation of a medieval text on Islam in a speech to college professors just emphasizes again that there is an element in modern Islam that simply cannot tolerate freedom of speech and freedom of inquiry. Now the words of a major Christian leader are different from the publication of one person’s cartoons, and the history of the crusades adds a negative element to the context, but nonetheless this kind of universal protest and anger in Islam is, to put it mildly, inappropriate.
I know that Christians also protest negative things said about them, and the Muslim world provides plenty of opportunities with a number of grossly irresponsible leaders who have serious mouth control problem. Still, I don’t think they should be forced to shut up. That’s freedom of expression. I’m not talking about the legal right of free speech, but of the concept of freedom of expression.
But many Muslims are reserving to themselves the right to insult practically everyone else, while protesting any effort to respond. Let me be clear. There are moderate Muslims with whom I have no problem. In fact, I have no problem with any Muslim who is not planning to try to use force to impose their views on me or on my country. They can use as much peaceful persuasion as they wish. At the same time, I condemn every person who feels that they should be able to shut up their opponents by threats of violence. I would suggest that western leaders, religious or otherwise, refuse to apologize or respond in any way while angry crowds run around the streets protesting words and images.
The behavior in these protests is stupid, and it should be condemned as such. The behavior of those who threaten death to westerners is evil, and it should be condemned as such. If protesters want to burn down pieces of their own countries, that is the problem of those countries and those people. And yes, when Muslim countries deny rights to women, or impose cruel punishments on their people, it is appropriate for people to condemn those activities and those laws.
Having said that, if westerners or Christians call for violence against civilian populations in the Muslim world, or any unjustified violence against anyone, they should also be condemned. At the same time, their right to express their view should be protected. The pope may have made less than the best choice of words, but thus far, I don’t even see that much of a problem in his speech.
Freedom is threatened right now on every side, in our own government here in the United States through authorization of torture and indefinite incarceration, in Europe through the imposition of politically correct speech, and in the Muslim world by the advance of fundamentalist Islam. The only remedy is for those who love freedom to defend it by word and deed at all times.
(OK, I’ll get off the soapbox!)
Note: Actually let me note that as long as the protests are non-violent, the protesters also should be allowed their expression. I would certainly consider it hypocritical, however.
