Threads from Henry's Web

Category: Author Related

Posts that relate in some way to my books. Excludes administrative posts and most reviews of other people’s books.

  • A New Kind of Publishing

    When I was persuading by my wife and daughter to get a 21st century cell phone, my now indispensable Palm Centro, my friends were amused but not surprised that I soon had Bible software on it.

    I must confess that the one time I used that Bible in church I got some really suspicious looks.  “That guy’s using his cell phone during the church service!”  No, but I was checking out a passage the preacher was using in the ESV, which is the version I have on the phone.  (No, the ESV is not my favorite, but it’s quite usable for me.)

    At the same time, I’m dealing with the fact that in my own publishing work I’m finding that many more people want content that is accessible online, and you simply don’t get to talk to them if you don’t make things available now, and don’t make them interactive.

    David Ker relates these new realities to Bible publishing, and notes some of the potential problems as well.  I have found the same problem he has with devotional time.  I can often work Bible reading and study time into my electronically herded day, but prayer, meditation, and listening to the Holy Spirit are substantially more difficult.  For those I have to cut myself off from the world.

    There is a problem, as I noted tangentially in my post about church yesterday, with equating the technology we use to solve problems with the problems and/or the solutions themselves.  For example, the problem of keeping in touch with one another during the week so that we can spur one another to good works is not solved by employing technology as such; rather, technology can help us do what needs to be done.  It’s also excessively easy to equate social trends with the technology on which they feed; I’m certainly guilty of that.  But all these things do interact.

    I think the basic question will remain whether our tools control us, or we will control our tools.  The new interactivity can provide many new opportunities.  One element of the method of Bible study I teach is sharing.  By sharing I mean hearing from others as well as speaking to others, and testing what you think you heard from God against what others think and hear.  Technology, and particularly the number of voices we can hear will either help or hinder that process, depending on how we use them.  We can now interact with many more people, from many more points of view, but will we interact with them effectively and seriously, or will it be superficial contact?

    The potential is tremendous.  I congratulate David for getting us all thinking about this.  How do we use both social trends and the technology that accompanies or feeds them to improve our Bible study and our spiritual lives?

  • If You Are Having Trouble Accessing God, Read This

    When I’m teaching church members, I like to emphasize service in one’s choice of a church congregation.  The best congregation for you is the one where you can best fulfill your call to minister to others.  I believe everyone has such a call.  That’s a generalization that often doesn’t answer that many questions, but it often does help.

    Thus I don’t like to talk much in terms of whether a church “fulfills my needs” or “feeds me” or whether I enjoy the worship services, and whether the services are up to standards.  That seems like selling church as a commodity, and whether you’re looking for child care or entertainment, it’s likely that your church isn’t going to compete well according to secular standards in any case.

    That’s not to say that all these things are not important.  The servant who is not fed, clothed, and housed is unlikely to be able to serve well.  That principle applies spiritually as well as physically.  So the search for a church in which I can best carry out my call to ministry may well come back to the question of where I will be fed, all other things being generally equal.

    I must confess that I’ve been having trouble with “church” for some time.  I’ve struggled with everything from attendance to writing the tithe check.  It’s not because I don’t like to get up that early in the morning.  I have normally had hours with the books before I ever get to church.  It’s not the financial scare of writing the tithe check either.  I’ve been in much more difficult financial circumstances.  The temptation is to right the tithe check to some other organization to accomplish some task that I choose, rather than to my local church, which is where I’m convicted it should go.

    It’s that conviction that keeps me going and keeps me doing these things.  But what if one is a church leader who needs to work with the folks who are a bit less convicted?  I belong to a United Methodist congregation, and 50% attendance on a given Sunday is considered very good.  Some churches run more like 30%.  Part of that is a paperwork problem, in that it is very difficult to remove members from the church rolls when they disappear, and people are not that keen on membership paperwork these days.  It’s one way in which the United Methodist Church is perhaps a bit out of touch–a bureaucratic church in an age when people want to escape that style, at least on Sunday morning.

    But that’s not the whole story.  Somewhere in that 50-70% who are missing on Sunday morning there are a lot of people who simply aren’t convicted enough or motivated enough to show up at church.  So my message to church leaders (including myself), is that we do have to be concerned with feeding the people and motivating them.  It’s all well and good to say they ought to attend church services, and they ought to be looking for a place to serve.  When I’m teaching them, I’ll tell them that.  But we as leaders need to help make them welcome.

    Making people welcome, involving phrases like “seeker sensitive” and even “user friendly” have gotten a bad reputation in some circles, and I think that in many ways they should have.  They can easily lend themselves to marketing a service or advertising entertainment, which is always going to be a losing proposition, unless our churches also fulfill spiritual needs, and fulfilling spiritual needs always leads to both the motivation for, and practice of, action and service.

    I discovered a blog through the Christian Carnival this week, Boston Bible Geeks.  They have a post titled The Necessity of the Church for a Persevering Faith, in which they say:

    But God has not left us alone to fight against sin and temptation.  He has given us each other.  He tells us to assemble together, not to meet a requirement or get a star on our Sunday School attendance chart.  He tells us to meet together so we can build each other up and keep each other from sinning.  We are given the responsibility to restore each other when we do sin (Gal 6:1, I deal with that verse here).

    Now you need to go read the entire post to get the context of that, but the point here is that the congregation–not just the pastor or the Sunday School teacher–is charged to encourage one another in their Christian walk, and the major purpose, according to Hebrews, is to keep us from falling into sin, and to help restore us if we do.

    That reminded me of something that has happened each time I signed onto my web hosting account this week.  There’s a message that appears right after I sign on that says, “If you are having trouble accessing your account, read this.”  It has made me laugh each time.  I even went to check whether it can be accessed without logging in.  It can, but it doesn’t appear conveniently on the login page.  The encouragement, you see, comes only after you’re “in.”

    That’s the problem with church, and even with small groups.  What reaches out and encourages our Bible study each week?  I’ve been disturbed by the number of times I’ve taught a series of Sunday School lessons, and entire Sunday School classes will confess that they didn’t read or study anything that I provided on a topic during the week.  That means that they absorb (too often) or even reject what I say without giving it more thought than occurs in a Sunday School hour.

    It’s as though we have a sign on the inside of our church sanctuary and on the inside of our Sunday School classrooms that says, “If you are having trouble accessing God, read this.”  The church needs to create connections that go beyond the church setting, beyond the Sunday morning hour, and provide a “spurring to good works” (Hebrews 10:24) that lasts through the week.

    There are many means of doing this.  My home church’s new ICON service even has a Facebook page and Twitter account, so that they can send out messages.  But these are only part of the means, not the content.  I’m not a good person to go into all the means of reaching people socially.  I do know it needs to be done in order to build a complete Christian life.  Whether the means are high tech or low tech the question is whether the Christian activity of “spurring” continues all week.

    It’s that spurring, that building of a complete Christian life that will make church worthwhile, and if it’s really worth it, people will be there.

  • Free Speech and Savings Possible

    … at one blow. Eliminate these. I have never been able to understand how controls on the money people use in order to speak could be considered consistent with free speech. In fact, it’s a way to control speech.

    So we could eliminate regulations, reduce the federal budget, make it easier to get into campaigning by getting rid of complicated language, and eliminate the headaches of people who have to figure out a “good” limit on contributions when there is no such thing.

    Oh, and by the way, I considered Taegan Goddard’s Political Wire one of my most useful RSS feeds.

  • Bad Reasons for Getting Out of a War

    I’m an opponent of the Iraq war, but I oppose it on strategic grounds. Even now, I believe that we have gained very little, and are in fact worse off than when we started. After a period of time we will find that Iraq has become another haven for terrorists, perhaps not as bad as Afghanistan was, but definitely not safe and friendly. We can blame that on the idea that we can create a government in such a state that is both democratic and reliably friendly, and do so by force from the outside.

    For some odd reason, foreigners killing local folks, however they may express their justification, just don’t become popular with the same local folks. Sometimes you have to do it, but don’t expect it to make you popular. So if you are carrying out a war in order to become popular, for some reason you’re likely to fail.

    Stupid, conflicting aims – lousy results. We similarly harmed our own interests when we pushed for early elections for the Palestinians, and then were shocked by the results. (Ex-President Bush take note: People do freely choose terrorists as their rulers.)

    But then there are bad reasons for getting out of a war, for example:

    • The people will start to love us if we go home after the invasion.
    • Force is really unnecessary if we just talk enough.
    • We’re really tired of fighting the war.
    • This is harder than we thought when we started.

    Thus I view with some alarm this report that only 1/3 of Americans support sending more troops to Afghanistan. In this case the point is not popularity, though we may be able to aid the current government. The point is hunting terrorists, in a place where actual terrorists live. As long as that is a viable option, we need to be willing to use the necessary resources. When it is strategically right, we need to be able to move on.

    Now I must give a hat tip to Dr. Michael Westmoreland-White, who alerted me to this report. In his case I must note that he is consistently opposed the war, in fact, all wars. That is a consistent and moral position, even though I disagree.

    The folks that get on my nerves are the ones who are happy to invade, kill a few thousand people, and then get out because it’s inconvenient. They don’t oppose war; they oppose inconvenience. Theirs is not a moral choice; it’s a position into which they drift for their own comfort.

    Americans have a bad habit of supporting the glory of a quick invasion when we can see the enemy running and dying. It’s the hard job of cleaning up afterward for which we lack the stomach. That’s the worst of all possible combinations; it’s childish and immature. A nation with our kind of firepower can’t afford to be so childish and immature.

  • The Need for my Series on Interpreting the Bible

    … amongst many other things.

    As I’m preparing to move forward in this series, which covers only one small area, I find this post from the generally enlightening Jason Rosenhouse, who lauds simplistic arguments in putting down other simplistic arguments.

    He approvingly quotes Coyne:

    Unfortunately, some theologians with a deistic bent seem to think that they speak for all the faithful. These were the critics who denounced Dawkins and his colleagues for not grappling with every subtle theological argument for the existence of God, for not steeping themselves in the complex history of theology. . . .

    Just so! In the same way as I would accuse someone of finding the least qualified person who calls himself a scientist, say someone with a high school level of scientific knowledge, I object when someone targets their arguments against theism at the level of the church pews.

    Certain people on the non-theistic side of this debate expect theists to drop to the lowest common denominator while not treating scientists in the same way. It’s fine if they wish to argue in that fashion, but they shouldn’t be surprised when those with more than a high school knowledge of theology find their arguments unconvincing.

    The success of Dawkins et. al. is more due to the miserable level of Christian knowledge than to any brilliance on Dawkins part. On theology, he writes like a rank amateur–and I say that as one who deeply admires his scientific writing.

    In the very manner I outlined in my previous post, these folks imagine a set of beliefs, note that this set of beliefs conflicts with evolution, and then announce that evolution cannot be reconciled with Christianity.

    But since that set of imaginary beliefs is hardly even related to my own beliefs, and those of many other Christians, I can hardly be expected to concern myself with reconciling the discrepancies, can I?

    (Let me call attention also to Tony Mitchell’s recent post The Dilemma of Science and Faith.)

  • Dr. Reich Stirs up some Hornets

    I’ve been following Dr. Reich’s blog ever since I discovered it during the primary season. He was Labor Secretary during the Clinton administration, and I recall not always agreeing with him at the time, though I don’t recall the details. In any case, from the time when TARP was passed through the auto industry bailout, and now in specific testimony and writing regarding the stimulus package, I have to say that I have found him extremely thoughtful and constructive.

    Thus it’s interesting to note that no less (or greater!) a trio than Michelle Malkin, Sean Hannity, and Rush Limbaugh have misconstrued some of his testimony to congress, and of course have begun yelling about it. (Media Matters reports on it, HT to Robert Reich.)

    Of course, there is a group of people, fortunately small I think, who believe that every attempt to be inclusive is automatically an attack on white men. As a white man myself, I repudiate such notions. I believe that each of us is made better as society becomes more inclusive and that the expansion of the economy in size, in creativity, in competition, and in diversity is well worth any temporary displacement.

    Dr. Reich is merely asking that we make sure that the jobs created by the stimulus go to a broad range of people–an admirable goal. In any case, his suggestions are serious enough to merit careful and substantial debate, not a mauling by shallow political entertainers.

    I know, what fantasy land to I [want to] live in?

  • Interpreting the Bible – Mid-Course Focus

    This isn’t a summary of previous posts, but rather an attempt to focus on the issue I’m trying to address with this series before I continue. The problem with a series like this is that the examples begin to take over the topic. Since I have used complementarianism and theistic evolution as examples, and brought inerrancy into the discussion in order to demonstrate that it is not the key issue involved, it is easy for a reader to decide that I’m trying to debate any one of those issues, or perhaps to prefer that I debate them and try to redirect the topic.

    Since the posts to which I responded brought up two more issues, homosexuality and violent passages in the Bible, which are again controversial issues, I want to focus back on the point I’m trying to make: It’s both difficult and inappropriate to tell your opponent what his or her position ought to be. In this case I’m responding to the charge that a Christian who accepts the theory of evolution is less Biblical because the “obvious exegesis” of Genesis favors a young earth creationist position.

    Also, though I believe that theistic evolution is the best position to take at the moment, I am not attempting to demonstrate that. Rather, I’m attempting to show that it, along with a number of other positions on Genesis, can be held plausibly as interpretations of the Biblical text. The particular position one adopts depends on other factors, including the particular approach one takes to Biblical interpretation. After this mid-course focus I’m going to look at other issues and ask whether the exegesis is so obvious that an opponent of some particular brand of theology can easily dismiss it as “not real Christianity.” Within some limits, Christianity allows, and has always allowed, some flexibility.

    The problem often starts with a charge that goes something like this:

    1) The Bible clearly teaches X
    2) X is unthinkable or false
    3) So Christianity must be false

    Now there are numerous and huge gaps in the logic as I have written it, but I think those gaps generally exist in the argument as presented by critics of Christianity. (Note to my philosophically inclined friends: To avoid general implosion with possible damage to the space-time continuum, do not try to critique that as a syllogism. Did I say it was a syllogism? I did not!) Let me apply this to a couple of relevant issues:

    1) The Bible clearly teaches that the earth was created in seven literal days 6,000 years ago
    2) That teaching is false
    3) Christianity must be false

    One obviously missing element here is “Christianity actually teaches X” but that is generally assumed, as is the direct connection between “The Bible clearly teaches X” and “Christianity accepts X as true.”

    For example, one could say that the Bible teaches that an animal must be brought as a sacrifice if one sins, but Christianity does not teach this, for reasons that seem good and proper to pretty much all Christians. Here we have a teaching that is fairly clear, but that Christians believe applied to a particular set of times and places, not including the present. You can try to use this to demonstrate that Christians don’t really follow the Bible, but it’s not going to help as an argument against Christianity because it teaches animal sacrifice. (PETA beware!)

    That would fit more with another form of the argument:

    1) The Bible teaches that God condones and even commands violence
    2) Condoning violence is unthinkable (but where is the demonstration that it is wrong?)
    3) Therefore Christianity is false

    Now supposing this argument is used against a Christian who is a pacifist. Clearly the conclusion is false with reference to that person’s belief.

    The point I am trying to make here is not primarily whether the Bible teaches any of these things, or whether they are true or false, but whether a Christian can believe or disbelieve them and still be a Christian. Is it proper to dismiss theistic evolutionists and even old earth creationists as “not real Christians,” rather than to respond to their actual position?

    Dawkins, in his book The God Delusion, clearly wants to argue with fundamentalists and then dismiss all Christians based on his arguments against fundamentalists. I blogged about that starting in From the Land of the Deluded, where I make some similar points.

    I have two suggestions here. First, that Christianity is not defined by American fundamentalism. I have supported that partially and will continue to do so as the series progresses. Second, that it is better to respond to an opponent based on what that opponent actually believes rather than what you imagine them to believe or what you think they ought to believe.

    It is inevitable that this will sometimes fail, but it is an admirable goal in any case, and trying to define your opponent out of existence as the first step to a debate is probably not going to get you very far.

    Christians do this to atheists from time to time as well, in particular by concluding that an atheist actually hates God or does not desire to be under authority. This suggests that an atheist isn’t really an atheist, but is rather a rebellious theist. Perhaps it would be a good idea to stretch our Christian imaginations a little bit, and allow that someone might just not find the idea of God convincing, or might not see sufficient evidence to believe. Imagine, in other words, that the atheist is honestly stating his or her beliefs.

    Further, we need to realize that what seems to us a certain result of a particular belief might not be so certain for someone else. In talking about grief, I am likely to mention that my relationship with Jesus Christ and spiritual disciplines including prayer and fasting have been critical to me in facing loss. Do I mean that someone without those particular beliefs will not be able to handle what I have handled? Not at all! From personal experience I know persons from other faith traditions who have found their beliefs and spiritual practices critical, and I know non-believers who have also endured and come out of such trials successfully. I mention this particular case because it is very common for Christians to believe that atheists will be unable to endure hardship and loss.

    One last illustration might help. I speak frequently to Methodist groups, as I’m a member of a United Methodist congregation. Every Methodist group with whom I have discussed Calvinism has come to the conclusion that Calvinists will not engage in evangelism. Why? If Calvinists believe in predestination–that God has determined who will be saved or lost–what purpose is their for evangelism? The result is already determined!

    Now I have always pointed out that Calvinists do, in fact, practice evangelism, and thus attacking them for a failure in outreach would be inappropriate. A few years ago, however, I had the experience of hearing John Blanchard, a Calvinist evangelist (something many Methodists would regard as an oxymoron), who was asked this very question: Why, if you believe in predestination, are you an evangelist?

    His answer, as I remember it, was this: Predestination is a doctrine, and I believe it; evangelism is a command, and I obey it.

    Hmmm. A bit different logic than we Methodists were assuming he would use, but here we have him believing both things. He is not the person we assumed he would be.

    Neither is the theistic evolutionist the person you assumed him to be. He is not necessarily a scientist whose religion is loosely pasted on. He might be a devout believer and a scientist. On the other hand, his training might be in Biblical studies, like mine is, and the church and faith might be the stuff of his daily life. In any case, he (or she) not likely to be impressed when you claim he’s not who he says he is.

    As I move forward I’m going to discuss views on homosexuality and the church. It may surprise some to know that many advocates of acceptance of gays and lesbians in the full fellowship of the church are actually quite conservative in their understanding of exegesis. One can fault their results in a number of passages, in my view, but one can hardly say that they lack the intent or a conservative approach, even as one charges them with special pleading in particular cases.

    And so as not to disappoint, let me note right now that my intention will not be to argue one side or another here, but rather to look at the types of Biblical interpretation involved.

    Previous posts in this series were:

  • The Press is No More Intelligent

    I just watched the initial White House press briefing. I was watching on MSNBC, and immediately afterwards one of the reporters commented that the briefing was quite contentious, that the press corps was “feisty” and that this should lay to rest any idea that the press, which was pretty negative on President Bush, would fail to be vigilant in challenging the Obama White House.

    Now I think that a free press is very important in a democracy. I believe that one of the few things on which I can be said to take an extreme position is freedom of speech and of the press. But if the press that is free is also lazy and stupid, that freedom will do little good.

    In this case, the majority of the questions were stupid. While they may have put the briefer (Robert Gibbs) on the spot because they were unexpected, they also were unlikely to elicit any valuable information or pressure any substantive change. The questions on the retaking of the oath of office and the concerns over how it was covered by the press were particularly inane and childish. (I was going to write a short post on the oath thing, but Allan Bevere wrote a better one.)

    The frequent complaint about bloggers, however valid, is also often valid about the mainstream media. In Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, there’s a scene in which a young reporter, carried away by the joy of reporting an important accomplishment says that he had always wanted to be someone who reports news. Our press should consider sharing that fictional young man’s ambition.

  • The Freedom to be Dumb

    Well, actually you should have the freedom to be dumb, but not on the public school budget. For all those who wonder why I strongly oppose so-called academic freedom bills applying to the High School science curriculum, see this site.

    Cool, no?

  • A Few Kicks in the Rear

    I think that President Barack Obama’s inaugural speech was less about soaring rhetoric and more about giving the nation a few kicks in the rear, though only in the nicest way.

    Yet the kicks were firm for all of that. While government has work to do, we all need to change our attitude and get going both in work and in service.

    I was also pleased to note that he mentioned “non-believers” in his list of groups. That doesn’t happen all that often.

    Let’s try to live up to it!