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.

  • Obama Regards Himself as Liberal

    Terms like “bipartisan” and even “post-partisan” were employed throughout the campaign and are being used now in criticism of the Obama administration that is taking shape.

    The problem is that we have gotten used to the notion that bipartisanship involves people from two parties who happen to agree on an issue working together. Thus moderate Republicans and Democrats can get together on points on which they can agree, and that is regarded as “bipartisan.”

    Trouble is, neither party has a very coherent ideology, and thus there are always issues on which people who already pretty nearly agree can get together. There is a virtue in ignoring unimportant labels in order to work together on common goals.

    I honestly didn’t believe it during the campaign, but President-Elect Obama seems actually to have meant bipartisan. Not merely as in Republican and Democrat, but as in conservative, moderate, and liberal, as in people who actually disagree on substance having an input and a part in the process.

    That’s much harder to do, and it involves reaching out to people with whom one disagrees. The complaint has been that Obama has done too much reaching to the center and the right hand side of the spectrum.

    But it seems to me that the president-elect regards himself as a liberal, and thus any reaching out would involve reaching out to those on that side of the spectrum. He expects to set policy, as he has indicated in answers to the press, and to have this team carry it out. He will be listening, however, to a variety of voices.

    This doesn’t involve merely adding a couple of Republicans of moderate persuasion to an otherwise Democratic cabinet. It involves putting people who disagree substantively in a position to be heard by the president.

    I don’t know how this is going to work. If the president-elect is less of a leader than he thinks he is, the result could be disastrous. On the other hand, if he is capable of directing this group of leaders he has put together, which strikes me as a bit like herding cats, he could accomplish something quite extraordinary.

    Only time with him in actual power will tell us what the result will be, but I would say that I am more optimistic today than when I cast my vote.

    There are some issues on which the cabinet concerns me, particularly the Iraq war, torture, and certain constitutional issues in domestic counter-terrorism. I will continue to watch these issues, and to hope that Obama’s view, as expressed in the campaign, is one he can see through with the team he has assembled.

    But overall, think there is much cause to hope this coming administration will be better than I expected.

  • Loving, but not Recommending, the REB

    There has been a good deal of talk in the biblioblogosphere about translation theory, and in connection with that support for the REB.  In particular, I would note John Hobbins post Why the REB is a Great Translation, and to his earlier posts (not directly on the REB but very relevant to this post), You need an excellent translation to understand the Greek New Testament, and Critique of “Natural English” as a Goal of Translation.

    I’m not going to respond in detail to these posts.  I think I’ve made my translation philosophy, such as it is, clear previously.  But it’s interesting to me that I can disagree quite profoundly with John Hobbins’ view of translation, and at the same time personally prefer the REB.

    But the answer is right there in my phraseology.  I prefer the REB, but I eschew terms such as “the best translation.”  The problem I see here is that such statements tend to ignore the audience for the translation, and at the same time prescribe goals that audience should have.

    For example, John presents some rather admirable goals in terms of literary allusions and quality, as well as in terms of understanding the source language.  As I always do about this point, let me simply note that if one wants to get the nuances of the source language, the only answer is to actually learn the source language.  This is something Hobbins has done, and done well.  But at the same time he thinks this will somehow be made widespread through a particular approach to translation.

    The problem, in my view, is that many people will miss these subtle, and even not-so-subtle, literary characteristics.  I believe most will miss them, but can’t prove it as I’m working from personal experience.  In my experience teaching Bible classes to lay people, I have found that there is a distinct limit on what you can expect people to do.

    This is not because they are stupid; it’s because they have other lives.  They don’t spend most of their time studying this sort of thing.  In general, when I point out details, people are happy to listen, but this doesn’t become a regular part of their Bible study.  In the best cases, such things come to them through commentaries.

    I would note the happy exception of my mother, who chose on retirement to learn to read both Greek and Hebrew.  She’s now 90 years old and continues to use both in her own devotions.  But I will note that she did this after retirement, though her retirement is a quite active time in her life!

    I think it is arrogant of me to expect people in general to learn my field or expect them to have the same goals that I do in Bible reading.  For some, the target will be reading for a general message, without concern with details.  For others, literary beauty will be the main issue, and literary beauty is in the reader’s eye or hearer’s ear, despite centuries of “experts” trying to make certain literature “good” and other literature “bad.”  (J. K. Gayle provided an interesting post on this.)

    For yet others, the issue is to get to the forms of the source language, and while I recommend that they learn the language if that is their goal, a more word for word translation will help in a limited sort of way.

    So how does this relate to the REB?  Quite directly.  I love the REB.  I read it regularly.  I think it does overall the best job of translating the Bible in well-formed literary language.  That is something that I personally like.

    But other people function differently than I do.  A literary translation may actually be a distraction for them in devotional reading.  I note that some congregations I’ve worked with find the REB not that easy to follow when read from the pulpit.  (It shares this characteristic with some other translations like the ESV or the unfortunately NKJV.)

    Now each of those translations has some things in its favor, though I find the NKJV the hardest to justify, but they also have drawbacks.  It depends on who is using the translation, including when the “who” is a community, and what they are using that translation for.

    I see no reason to be prescriptive here.  One simply has to match the characteristics of a translation with use and user, as far as possible.

  • Teaching Evolution in Florida

    Brandon Haught of Florida Citizens for Science has started a series of posts on the history of the creation-evolution controversy here in Florida.

    In the new year I intend to spend a bit more time on Florida issues and even on county issues (Escambia County in northwest Florida), so you can watch for (and possibly ignore if you’re not from these parts) posts with those tags.

    I expect there to be bills on this, probably falsely called academic freedom bills, introduced into the next legislative sessions, and I will comment on them and track them here on this blog.

    It’s interesting to note how advocates of creationism in the schools have gone from bills forbidding that evolution be taught to “academic freedom” bills. Evolving strategy, eh?

  • Dialogue with Those Who Agree

    Two blogs I read regularly provided contrasting responses to Barack Obama’s choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation at his inauguration.

    First, Michael L. Westmoreland-White, who speaks from the left, expresses some anger because he sees Warren as someone whose views are opposed to those of many who made Barack Obama’s candidacy possible. As is usual, Dr. Westmoreland-White nuances his position and expresses it gracefully, even saying that some on the left would be willing to go along with the inclusiveness if Warren were giving the benediction, when many will have tuned out, rather than the invocation. I can understand that viewpoint.

    On the other end of the spectrum, Drew, guest blogger at Pursuing Holiness, thinks that Warren should refuse to give the invocation, because he is tacitly approving Obama’s “immoral” positions, citing particularly gay marriage, abortion, and even tax policy. To accurately reflect the flavor, let me quote:

    1 Corinthians 5:11 doesn’t explicitly mention “murder” or “stealing” or “blatant heresy,” but nonetheless…Warren should certainly hesitate before tolerating Obama’s gross immorality.

    It’s not my purpose here to debate these issues, but I should note that I would certainly not make it through Drew’s morality filter, and in fact I don’t think that he has expressed a particularly Christian filter at all. I define “Christian” as one who places one’s trust in Jesus, not as one who takes a particular set of positions on public policy.

    Though I’m clearly closer to Dr. Westmoreland-White’s position, my concern with both of these posts is similar in nature. I think we have a strong tendency to propose dialogue largely between groups of people who agree totally.

    Considering that the left, not to mention much of the center, has not had a seat at the table for the Bush administration, it is not surprising that many not on the right want to grab hold of the power and exclude the excluders. It is also doubtless difficult to carry on dialogue with those who regard you as grossly immoral, which is the position in which the GLBT community is placed.

    At the same time the challenge for Obama is to make whatever changes he can accomplish in Washington last more than one term and even more than two terms. In order to do that, he will need the support of opponents, and he will need to draw in more people. As such, his supporters might consider giving him more room.

    But from Warren’s point of view, I think it is important for him to have a voice. I don’t think that offering an invocation indicates support for all the moral positions of the person, group, or event in question.

    Dialogue needs to be between people who disagree. Bipartisanship needs to involve more than one party. Obama seems to be interested in both dialogue and bipartisanship. Let’s give him a chance to demonstrate an ability to lead in the midst of a chorus of diverse voices.

  • Two Steps Back, and Proof Texts Too

    Via Aristotle’s Feminist Subject, I found the story of the “True Woman” movement. See their manifesto as well.

    Earlier today, John Hobbins was calling for “respectful dialogue” as the “need of the hour.” I like John Hobbins, and he displays great wisdom. Respectful dialogue is both needed and rarely to be had.

    Unfortunately, with respect to the issue of women in leadership, I have a hard time complying with that request. It’s not the nature of the logical arguments involved. I do regard the complementarian position to be an egregious misapplication of scripture, using a collection of particulars to overcome the force of the overarching and underlying narrative. It uses a few comments by Paul to transform the incarnation into some sort of petty power play.

    But that’s not why I’m emotional about this, despite my fairly heavy language in the last paragraph. I read, hear, and speak this issue in the shadow of the many women I know whom God gifted for leadership, and whose behavior these women would call ungodly.

    It’s not that they want to raise children. Many of the women of whom I speak raised families as well, and I do not intend to speak ill of those women–or men–who make a choice to be homemakers. It’s a praiseworthy choice. It’s not so praiseworthy, however, when one pretends that choice makes one spiritually superior, or makes efforts to restrict the choices for other women who may feel somewhat differently.

    At the emotional level I know women who are definitely gifted, ranging from Lucille Knapp, the gifted woman who taught me my first two years of Greek to Dr. Leona Running who taught me such languages as Syriac, Akkadian, and Middle Egyptian, to my wife Jody Neufeld who is a gifted teacher capable of taking spiritual concepts and bringing them down to daily life.

    The problem, you see, is that when I hear someone say that a woman can’t speak or lead in a church, it’s not some abstract thing. I see those women and the myriad of others like them, being told that it doesn’t matter how God has gifted them–they better shut up, go away, and make that other choice.

    Egalitarians can, and should, celebrate women who choose to make their ministry in their home. But complementarians will find it impossible to celebrate those women who choose to exercise their God-given gifts of leadership in the church, or those men who choose to be homemakers.

    And that leaves me with a strongly, even emotionally, held position.

  • Evidently the Jesus Seminar is too Religious

    The Christian Post reports on a new effort to study the historical Jesus, known as the Jesus Project. Since I don’t always trust the objectivity of the Christian Post (or anyone else including myself, for that matter), I looked for additional information.

    According to both that source (and others):

    . . . Dr. R. Joseph Hoffmann, chair of the Project and the Committee for the Scientific Examination of Religion, said that the “The Jesus Seminar had difficulty separating itself from the faith commitments of its members. Its agenda was not exclusively, but in large measure theologically driven. Its conclusions and methods raised more questions than they answered.”

    Many people questioned whether the members of the Jesus Seminar actually had faith commitments, though I know personally that many did and do. Nonetheless, the Seminar remains a relatively radical consensus when the whole of historical Jesus scholarship is examined.

    The new effort is sponsored by the Center for the Scientific Examination of Religion, a “a research division of the Center for Inquiry” [source].

    Simply from the list of names, this looks pretty radical in nature, and the sponsorship is largely skeptical. I have no problem with such a project, though I think that any relatively narrow inquiry is going to, to paraphrase Dr. Hoffmann, “. . .raise more questions than it answers.”

    Note the following as well:

    During the closing conference round-table, Tabor was quick to emphasize that “the Jesus Project repudiates any theological agendas, special pleading, or dogmatic presuppositions.” All members of the project share a common commitment to the importance of applying scientific methodologies to the sources used to construct the Jesus tradition.

    [found in both sources cited]

    I personally am very skeptical of the possibility of repudiating “all theological agendas, special pleading, or dogmatic presuppositions.” In fact, the very claim generates more questions than answers in my case.

    I wish any scholarly group that studies the historical Jesus well, but I’m not setting my expectations very high for this one.

  • The Worst Argument for Bailing Out the Auto Industry

    I was thinking of this as I watched a few interviews today. I’m still less than at full speed after being sick in bed early in the week, and I’m spending more time on the couch working on my laptop and less at the desk in my office.

    My first inclination was to cite the argument that we already gave $700 billion to the financial industry, so we should obviously be willing to give $25 or $34 or $xx billion to the auto industry. That suggests that if I stupidly spend a large amount of money on some techie toy I thereby license myself to spend additional money on any other toy I may desire. Why not? I’ve already established the principle, no?

    Of course, since I do think the financial system bailout was a bad idea, and has also failed to bail out the financial system, I obviously would find the argument that we ought to do more of the same unconvincing.

    The auto company executives shouldn’t be too surprised they’re getting more scrutiny either, since many congressmen are quite annoyed at the apparent lack of effect of the original bailout and the fact that they really don’t know just how the money is being used.

    But I actually heard what I think is the worst argument from the mayor of Lansing who was interviewed on MSNBC. He refined the “we already bailed out the financial industry” argument so as to make it much worse when he said that since we had bailed out the financial industry we should be willing to bail out the auto companies where, after all, “real” people make “real” products. (Note that this summary is from memory just after watching the interview.)

    When certain Republicans talked about “real” people during the campaign and suggested that those of us on the other side were less patriotic, less American, or didn’t have values, I found it annoying. I also think it’s counterproductive in politics when you suggest people you ought to try to persuade that they are morally defective. (The left prefers to accuse its enemies of being mentally defective instead.)

    But in this case problems come from two directions. First, some of us “unreal” people out here are customers who buy those cars. And I would note that unlike a certain congressman who was advocating the bail-out this week, but was found to be driving a Honda himself, I do own an American car. And no, I don’t have a couple of foreign cars as well–I only own the one American product.

    But further, this entire distinction between the “real” people who produce “real” products is invalid in an economic sense. Without those “unreal” people on wall street, the auto manufacturers would be unable to gather the capital necessary to invest in those factories and create those jobs. We have this bizarre vocabulary that suggests that the “everyday workers” who man the assembly lines “make cars” but somehow the white collar folks do not.

    But the brains the design the cars, the managers who organize the rather complex manufacturing process, the financiers who pull together the money, and those who distribute them all have a major part to play. The assembly line workers would be unable to build any cars without all those people. That’s not intended as a put-down. They also have their part in the process, and an honorable one it is. But that’s no excuse to pretend that they’re the whole operation.

    The best argument may be the economic risk of letting the industry fail with the resulting dislocation. The problem with this argument is that, if the industry is not doing well now, and if we don’t have an actual plan that is likely to make it better later, all we’ll be doing is delaying the day of reckoning. And sort of like an earthquake fault, the more pressure we allow to build, the worse the crash is once it comes.

    The arguments used to pretend that the U. S. auto industry is really much better than their sales and balance sheets indicate don’t give me any sort of feeling of assurance that the current team is going to fix things. When they are told that they’re failing they point to ratings in automotive magazines and good reviews. But good reviews don’t pay the bills. “Unreal” people like me, who don’t work assembly lines but nonetheless need transportation, pay those bills when we choose an American car.

    Of course there is an alternative. Get those magazines and those reviewers to bail out the industry. Apparently they believe the manufacturers are doing well. On the other hand, I’m betting they got their test and/or review cars free.

  • Wondering About Executive Pay

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • On Bundling Tourist Attractions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  • Signs and Wondering

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

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

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

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

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

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