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.

  • Whither the Budget Deficit

    Up, folks, always up.

    Those who know me as a moderate (which I prefer) or as a liberal (which I am often called) may be surprised to know that I started my political activism by working in the campaign of Ronald Reagan in 1976 when he ran against Gerald Ford. It was the first presidential election in which I would vote, and I registered as Republican. I worked as a precinct worker, which is to say mostly that I stood at the polling place on election day and tried to get people to change their vote to Reagan. It was Maryland, and I found it an uphill battle.

    The key thing that attracted me to Reagan was his $90 billion plan to balance the budget, as I remember it. I get a bit nostalgic when I think of those days, when only a $90 billion shift would have balanced the budget. It was a pretty controversial idea. Reagan lost, of course, though he did very well considering he was running against an incumbent president.

    By 1980 Reagan was running again and he had discovered supply side economics. No longer was the plan so much to balance the budget by carefully planning your taxation and spending. Now we were going to solve all our problems by reducing taxes and watching the revenue grow as the economy expanded.

    I don’t think supply side is totally without merit–quite. In general a less taxed economy is going to collect capital faster and grow faster. But it wasn’t the easy solution many thought it would be. It became the Republican excuse to spend without paying for it, and the deficit grew, and grew.

    I’ve heard a good deal of talk about redistribution in this campaign, and the truth is that no matter which slate of candidates we elect, we’re going to be redistributing income. It’s worked all through the system. I find it pretty disingenuous to argue that one should vote for a particular candidate because the other favors redistribution. It’s really a question of whose money gets redistributed and who benefits (if anyone) from it.

    In the case of deficit spending we’re doing some redistribution in a sense. We’re redistributing our problems into the future, and we’re doing so quite rapidly. The problem is that nobody wants to buckle down and actually pay the costs for the programs that they advocate, Democrat or Republican. Either telling people they can’t have certain things because there is no money, or telling them they’ll have to pay more taxes is generally a losing strategy in an election. At best, you can get by with what Barack Obama is doing by telling only a minority that they will pay higher taxes.

    There’s an interesting analysis of the tax proposals from the Tax Policy Center, and the results don’t look all that good.

    I don’t blame the current economic problems directly on deficit spending. Rather, I would suggest that we will face much worse problems in the future unless we start to be in a fiscally responsible manner. The proposals we have from the major candidates are not responsible, in my opinion.

    Crossposted to RedBlueChristian.com.

  • Mixed Health Care Feelings

    That’s mixed feelings about health care and feelings about a mixed system of health care, in case you were wondering.

    I’ve expressed my ambivalence about health care previously. While I hope for an ideal situation in which a certain level of health care is available to everyone regardless of ability to pay, I also want to protect the good things about American health care, including the level of choice and the leading edge developments.

    Such a combination won’t occur completely in real life. Any compromise that increases government funding is going to cut into choice and in some cases quality of care. Maintaining our leading edge advantage (read “expensive” leading edge) cuts into the ability to give basic care to everyone, simply because it costs. If everyone is expected to pay, expect everyone to get in on the decision as to whether certain treatments are worth it or not.

    Today on MSNBC.com I read A tale of 2 sickbeds: Health care in U.K. vs. U.S., which expresses my ambivalence very well. The author was hospitalized for similar problems in the U.S. and the U.K. though about 10 years apart. There were aspects of each experience that were better than the other.

    What is the possibility that real serious creativity could produce a system that gets the best of both? I suspect not. Everything I know about economics (which isn’t all that extensive) suggests it won’t work.

    It’s too bad, because I think that this nation will not forever accept the idea that the Emergency Room is primary care for a substantial number of patients. That provides lousy care and forces other people to pay. It takes money out of some people’s pockets for others just as effectively, though not as fairly, as taxes would, but it doesn’t deliver health care all that effectively.

  • Book Notes: Jesus and the Eyewitnesses

    Bauckham, Richard. Jesus and the Eyewitnesses. Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2006. 538 pp. ISBN: 0-8028-3162-1.

    I would remind my readers again that I am writing some notes on my experience of reading this book and not a formal review.

    I requested this book via interlibrary loan because it was recommended by a reader who commented on one of my posts blogging through What Have They Done with Jesus?. I objected to the idea that one could improve on the picture of Jesus by first building a picture of the eyewitnesses and then discussing what those eyewitnesses could tell us about Jesus. Since there is much less documentation on each of the eyewitnesses than there is on Jesus, any picture we create of them will be much less certain than even what we can say about Jesus himself, so just how does this procedure help us in getting a true picture of Jesus?

    Reading Bauckham on this topic has enlightened me somewhat on the intentions, if Witherington is indeed working on the same basis as Bauckham, but I remain essentially unimpressed with the final result. Bauckham is much plainer in expressing his procedure, and his book is more academic in style. (This isn’t particularly a criticism of Witherington who was intentionally writing a popular book.)

    If I can summarize in the briefest possible time, Bauckham is arguing that the gospel story was passed on by a form of controlled informal tradition, and that those who controlled this were the eyewitnesses sprinkled through the church.

    He finds evidence for this in a number of lines of argument including the use of names in the gospels, the shape of the stories, the level of divergence that is tolerated, and what is not tolerated, and even some cases of anonymity in the passion narrative of Mark. Why, for example, is it “one of the men with Jesus” who draws a sword in Mark 14:47, but the man is identified with Simon Peter in John 18:10? Bauckham argues that at the time Mark was written, this person’s identity needed to be protected because the authorities would be after him, while by the time John was written he (Simon Peter) was already dead.

    That is only one in many arguments for the survival of the eyewitnesses and their role in preservation of the story. I’m not going to make a real attempt to summarize all of these, as it would be impossible to do justice to the arguments. The book is only a bit over 500 pages; read it for yourself!

    While I have never been convinced by the argument that there were no eyewitnesses remaining by the time the gospel text was written, I am also unconvinced of the value of eyewitness testimony in and of itself. You may rightly ask what this leaves me.

    In the third quest the emphasis has been on evaluating sayings and incidents according to a set of criteria. This results generally in a very minimalistic Jesus, because some of the criteria, even necessary and good ones, tend to weed out a great deal that is quite possibly true, but which simply cannot be demonstrated well enough. This result seems surprising given the large amount of written material about Jesus, more than we have on many figures of history that we nonetheless feel free to characterize in more detail.

    It is no wonder that Christians seek something that will work a bit better. Perhaps they need look no further than how modern writing about ancient history is actually done. In essence, historians take the pieces that they have, sift them as they make sense, and attempt to fill in the blanks. I may simply be missing something in my reading, as I have only read a tiny fraction of what’s available on the historical Jesus, but I think Jesus is the only historical figure concerning whom we are barely willing to speculate. He becomes a very uninteresting figure.

    Part of this results from scholars who seem to want a Jesus who could occupy the office down the hall in the ivory tower. I think the argument over wisdom teacher vs. eschatological prophet is just such an issue. Many people of that time combined aspects of both. Why is this not possible for Jesus to do? He doesn’t have to fit our notions of consistency and a coherent philosophy.

    If we take this kind of approach, then I think we can also give serious consideration to the idea that the earliest generations of Christians might have had some idea of what they were talking about. They just may have had some idea of the character of Jesus. We would prefer a Jesus who perhaps never made the seemingly grandiose claim to be the Messiah. Let the early Christians do that for him. But somehow he made such an impression on them that a fairly substantial movement was able to get the idea that he thought he was the Messiah.

    Even if we view the tradition as an imperfect mirror, with the real Jesus dimly reflected therein, it seems a bit hasty to discard the mirror and start from scratch. In this sense I’m in tune with Bauckham, though that is saying much less than he is.

    On the other hand, it seems to me that many orthodox Christian writers are trying to combat the historical Jesus scholars by finding a way to say that Jesus is just as portrayed in the canonical gospels and that this is history, every bit as sound as any other form of history. Thus we have Bauckham arguing at great length that eyewitness testimony was important to ancient people, and finally in his conclusion that perhaps we should take it more seriously as well. “Trusting the eyewitnesses” is to replace “applying criteria” and result in a more complete and substantially accurate picture of Jesus.

    Here is where I part company. In trying to establish the eyewitnesses, Bauckham has made a number of arguments that are quite possibly true, but are nonetheless often no better established than the reasoning behind various criteria for historicity. This doesn’t mean he’s wrong; it simply means that when all is said and done we don’t know. My suggestion is that we go ahead and get comfortable with that.

    In my view, there is one problem with bringing orthodox theology in line with good historical methodology. In general, historical methodology is based on probability; not generally calculated probability, but a sort of common sense decision as to what is more likely. If two kings claim a great victory, we know they can’t both be right, so we look for more evidence, or we draw some common sense conclusions.

    In the case of Jesus, however, orthodox theology claims that he is unique, God in the flesh living amongst us. What does common sense say about a claim to virgin birth? Not likely. So if the options are either illegitimate birth by natural means or virgin birth, historical probability suggests the former. What does common sense say about people who die? They don’t come back. So if the claim is that somebody rose from the dead, historical probability suggests it’s not true.

    In practically every case of virgin birth claims (all that I know of) and all but a very small number of resurrection claims, neither believers nor unbelievers would decide differently. Yet I, an otherwise rational person (I think!), believe that Jesus rose from the dead. This is not an historical event that can be made probable. Even assuming miracles are possible, which I do, I am not going to assume that they are the most probable explanation. This can be tested by presenting the miraculous claims of another religion, and seeing how likely one is to accept them.

    In addition, I know my own experience. I did not come to believe in Jesus by historical methods. I came to believe in Jesus through contemporary testimony. I find the Jesus of orthodox faith fits that. I believe there is historical evidence for such a Jesus, but that this evidence falls far short of proof, and even short of probability. It must be so, because the Jesus of my faith is inherently improbable, unique in fact.

    Now you may be thinking that I’m not all that far from Bauckham, even if I got there afterward. And indeed the picture of Jesus in my head goes well with what Bauckham (and Witherington, for that matter) have written. That is indeed the case. But I sense in both writers the intention to make this more historically firm, to suggest that this is an historian’s conclusion. The jacket blurbs and advertising text tend to suggest this as well, though heaven knows many writers are badly served by their book covers! Thus far, I just don’t think they have done so successfully.

    I nonetheless strongly recommend this book for anyone interested in historical Jesus research. As I have repeatedly noted, each book on this topic is extremely good at critiquing the views of others, even if you find that their own pictures of Jesus are no more probable. In addition, Bauckham documents well and examines arguments in detail, so that you can profit no matter where you stand on the final result.

    Addendum:

    Here’s an overview of the chapters so you can get a better idea of the course of the argument. I have left the notes in an abbreviated form as I wrote them immediately after reading.

    1: From the Historical Jesus to the Jesus of Testimony
    General overview of the idea – going to the Jesus of testimony, specifically eyewitness testimony
    2: Papias on the Eyewitnesses
    Rehabilitating Papias

    3: Names in the Gospel Tradition
    Studying use of names. Why are certain characters named and others not.
    4: Palestinian Jewish Names
    Palestinian Jewish names – an exceedingly useful chapter even if you wind up disagreeing with the thesis of the book.
    5: The Twelve
    Looking at the lists of the apostles; reconciling most, error in Levi=Matthew equation.
    6: Eyewitnesses “from the Beginning”
    What constituted an eyewitness?
    7: The Petrine Perspective in the Gospel of Mark
    Looking at indicators that Mark is based on someone’s testimony, and that this testimony is that of Peter the apostle.
    8: Anonymous Persons in Mark’s Passion Narrative
    Arguing they are not named so as to protect the guilty.
    9: Papias on Mark and Matthew
    Deals with the differences in how the two gospels are put together and how their sources are to be understood.
    10: Models of Oral Tradition
    We get to one of the big questions-what does oral tradition preserve and how?
    11: Transmitting the Jesus Tradition
    Bauckham now argues that we have a “controlled informal” transmission, with the “controllers” being the eyewitnesses surviving in the community.
    12: Anonymous Tradition or Eyewitness Testimony
    Looking at the reasons why we should see the gospels as eyewitness testimony rather than a tradition of the community without named sources.
    13: Eyewitness Memory
    One of my own key questions, and one that I don’t think Baukham manages to deal with adequately, but nonetheless he does look at it more carefully than most.
    14: The Gospel of John as Eyewitness Testimony
    I think this will easily be the most controversial chapter, though I think Bauckham makes the best case possible.
    15: The Witness of the Beloved Disciple
    Identifying who this person was, and then assigning him as author of the gospel of John.
    16: Papias on John
    A very difficult search for reflections of the views of Papias on the gospel of John. His (possible) references could be to John the Elder, whom Bauckham identifies as the author rather than John son of Zebedee.
    17: Polycrates and Irenaeus on John
    Looking for more patristic evidence and judging whether it can apply to John the elder, and just how did the identification of the author with John son of Zebedee occur?
    18: The Jesus of Testimony
    Summary of the case.

  • Idiocy and Firing Michael Reiss

    I realize that journalists write confused stories and that headline writers produce stupid headlines to go with them, but I would think that academic or scientific organizations, irrespective of subject, should be able to be more sensible.

    It may not be so. “Firing” is, of course, my own overblown headline, provided you regard essentially forcing someone to resign as substantially different from firing them. In this case, I think the difference is entirely in framing.

    Reiss advocated responding in a reasonable and rational manner to the objections of children in school who are creationists. He didn’t advocate teaching creationism as equally scientific as the theory of evolution. His view is actually mainstream in his views.

    As an advocate of the theory of evolution I hope that the folks on our side will be clear here on what we do advocate (sound science in the science classroom) and what we don’t (suppression of all discussion).

    I’d commend to you Nick Matzke’s post on the Panda’s Thumb, which covers the scientific and educational point of view. Supplement this with and Doug’s post at MetaCatholic which deals with the religious aspects more fully.

  • Will We Let the Text of Scripture Change Us?

    On The Rev’s Rumbles (HT: Shuck and Jive) there is a discussion of Biblical authority. The writer quotes the following assertion favorably (from Kenneth Cauthen):

    NO CHRISTIAN ALLOWS THE BIBLE TO TEACH AS THE AUTHORITATIVE WORD OF GOD WHAT IS KNOWN OR BELIEVED (FOR WHATEVER REASONS) TO BE EITHER UNTRUE OR IMMORAL.

    EVERY CHRISTIAN FINDS WHAT THE BIBLE TEACHES AS THE AUTHORITATIVE WORD OF GOD TO BE IDENTICAL OR CONGRUENT WITH WHAT IS KNOWN OR BELIEVED (FOR WHATEVER REASONS) TO BE TRUE AND RIGHT.

    There is a great deal of truth in that statement. I can certainly observe these mechanisms in place as I discuss interpreting Bible passages. Try asking a group of Christians why they regard Leviticus 19:18 as a universal and binding command, but feel that they can ignore Leviticus 19:19, for example. There are certainly good reasons in Christian hermeneutics to do so, but those hermeneutical reasons are not the ones you are likely to hear.

    At the same time, such a statement can certainly be taken too far, whether or not it was intended by the author. (My own exposure to this particular author is limited to the quotes in this blog post, so please don’t take me as commenting on him; rather I’m commenting on the blog post that contains them and on some general approaches.) It’s easy to assume that nobody can change their impression of what is right and wrong based on their reading of a work they regard as authoritative. Such a change can be good or bad.

    It’s because of such issues that I think we should all spend time thinking about why we believe what we do, how we come to ethical decisions, and if we believe we base our decisions on the Bible, how we interpret what we read.

    I have frequently heard someone say that they do something because the Bible plainly says so, but when I point out another passage that speaks just as plainly taken at the same level of context as the first, they find a quick explanation for why it does not apply. The interesting point is to ask whether the same explanation will work for any similar scripture.

    Since one of the reasons one might reject Leviticus 19:19 while accepting Leviticus 19:18 is simply that Jesus reaffirmed Leviticus 19:18 (Love your neighbor as yourself), let me try again from Leviticus, this time with passages not so clearly affirmed (or not). Leviticus 18:22 is commonly read as forbidding homosexuality, and is used regularly by Christians as such. It is one passage regarding which I have heard the expression “the Bible plainly says.”

    When that was once quoted to me, I referenced Leviticus 19:33-34:

    Do not take advantage of foreigners who live among you in your land. Treat them like native-born Israelites, and love them as you love yourself. Remember that you were once foreigners living in the land of Egypt. I am the LORD your God. (NLTse)

    The immediate answer? “That’s different. Things are different now.”

    Now my point is not to debate just how these two texts would apply today. Rather, I would like to point out that if you quote one as “what the Bible plainly teaches” and then find reasons to avoid the other, you are not truly advocating “what the Bible plainly teaches” (an impossible task in any case), but are applying some other means of producing your result. That doesn’t mean you’re wrong on the result, but the process is not what you claim.

    I would argue that if “confirmed by Jesus” is the key, then Leviticus 19:33-34 has much better evidence of having been reaffirmed by Jesus than does Leviticus 18:22, though I actually think the “reaffirmed by Jesus” is not the best approach in any case.

    For me there’s a three step process, broadly described. The first is to ask just how I’m approaching the scripture. The second is to try to look at scriptures consistently. the third is to ask just how that might enlighten my decision making. I think God intentionally didn’t give us a working “plain meaning” model because he preferred us to go through the hard work of evaluating and making decisions.

    There is much in scripture that I believe should change me, or to be more accurate that God the Holy Spirit should use in changing me. I have to intentionally get away from using ad hoc interpretation to support my own view in order to let that happen.

  • Checking on ex-Hurricane Ike

    First I want to say that my thoughts and prayers are with the folks who experienced Hurricane Ike. Having lived through a couple of interesting storms, such as Ivan and Dennis, I empathize with their position. I’m not very good at writing condolence blog posts, largely because I think they are empty gestures for the most part, but sometimes we can’t help making a gesture, even if it’s pretty empty.

    In the “not making it empty” category, let me provide the United Methodist Committee on Relief hurricane response page. I complain about many things in the Methodist church, but when it comes time for relief, they’re the ones I trust. There are donation buttons on the page.

    What got me writing, however, was this story from MSNBC.com, really a totally unremarkable, even routine story, but one that bothers me.

    Why is it that we expect politicians and national leaders to make a personal appearance in a disaster area? What good does it do? Please note that this is not a criticism of President Bush. This expectation that our leaders will show up and sympathize in person and “assess the damage fore themselves” seems to be well-nigh universal. Any mistakes in this area are politically costly.

    But the people who really do assess the damage are professionals who are quite efficient, I believe, and one gets a much better picture of the damage for management purposes from their work. The people who actually help are the folks who show up to restore power, rebuild, clear roads, and so forth.

    I recall our elation when the power company trucks showed up on our street–actually at a friend’s place to which we had gone ahead of the storm. They were from Quebec, a long ways from home, and we were glad to see them. I can’t imagine that I would have welcomed a tour by the president in a similar way.

    I’m sure it’s an emotional relief, a sense that someone with power cares about us in our hour of need, but I confess I have never comprehended it. I’d be much happier with a president and various management level folks hanging out at headquarters and managing, while the folks who do the work travel to the area and do their jobs.

    I’d be interested in other people’s thoughts. Do managers really handle such a situation better after they fly by some of the damage? Is any understanding they may gain tangible and measurable?

  • But the Whole Election is Out of Context!

    So much of the way in which we understand language, not to mention pretty much everything else, is simply context.

    Thanks to the folks at Language Log we have a discussion of how Sarah Palin was taken out of context when some claimed that she thought we were on a God ordained mission in Iraq. A simple matter of understanding both the situation and reading the whole passage is all that is necessary to understand what is being said here.

    At the same time we have ridiculous attacks on Obama regarding sex education for kindergarten children and the “lipstick on a pig” thing. There is so much really stupid stuff being said one can hardly keep up. I’ve been limiting my reading on most of these issues to Politifact and various headlines. I note that Politifact has a very large number of “pants on fire” ratings right now, as well they should.

    But the fact is that the entire election is out of context, and apparently there are few people who are willing to look at things in their context. The special pleading from all sides is truly astounding, and I have a very hard time believing that the folks who write or say all this believe what they’re saying.

    When it comes to politics, the technology of the information age is facilitating a misinformation age.

    Demand better!

  • Textual Criticism Summary from Parchment and Pen

    C. Michael Patton presents Textual Criticism in a Nutshell, though what he means more precisely is New Testament textual criticism in a nutshell.

    It’s quite a good introduction giving a feel for the types of variants and why they might occur, and also why we might prefer not to call them “errors” considering that some are intentional, and some are stylistic variants and so forth.

    I would note only one caveat–I think he is a bit optimistic on how much impact the few substantial variants would have. I recall one correspondent who noted that of course variants in the New Testament text made no difference on doctrinal issues, since we don’t truly base our doctrines on the Bible in any case. That’s also overstating the case, in my view.

    Certainly there is a great deal more in the church’s doctrinal statements than is in the texts themselves. I regard this as a good thing. I think the church was supposed to grow and that the doctrinal statements express the church in that process. At the same time, they did take care within their approach to the study of texts, to provide some basis in scripture.

    We would hardly have the debates we do about some variants if there were no doctrinal issues. Thus it is good to realize that while the support orthodoxy may be strengthened or weakened by particular variants, there are no smoking guns that say “that doctrine is wrong,” or “this other doctrine should have been there.” It’s more a matter of the weight of textual support for the elements of doctrine.

  • Who Are We After 9-11?

    Any number of speakers and writers, myself certainly included, have talked about the various things we need to do to make our country safer from terrorist attacks. We’ve also sung the praises of rescue and relief workers and of various leaders during the time of crisis.

    Other countries of suffered greater losses proportionally than we did, but I’ve learned that one cannot compare one type of grief and loss with another. Besides the grief and the loss, the attacks of 9/11 made us feel vulnerable. I didn’t lose anyone I knew personally, so there is a bit of distance, but in the time immediately after the attacks we were united as a nation in a way very rarely seen.

    There’s a question that I think is more important than just how safe we are, how we will prevent such attacks in the future, and the general strategy of the war on terror. In what ways has 9/11 changes us as a nation and as people?

    An individual who goes through tragedy, loss, or extreme hardship may come out of it stronger and as a better person. He or she will undoubtedly come out changed, but that change can be for the better.

    But it is also possible for a person to come out changed for the worse.

    • Fear can grip one’s life, so that all focus is on preventing any such tragedy again. A parent who loses a child can constrict the lives of her other children so that there is as little risk as possible of a repetition.
    • Anger can take over, so that revenge is the only goal, and one can no longer deal reasonably with people who are related in any way to the cause of the tragedy.
    • Resentment can poison one’s mind, so that one cannot see clearly what needs to be done.
    • One can lose all sense of balance, resulting in a continued life of misery

    I think a nation or a group of people have many of the same options. What will you become as a result of what has happened? This question goes far beyond the immediate response to danger. I’m not chiding anyone for responding to danger. My own objections to the war in Iraq do not result from a conviction that we shouldn’t respond, but rather than Iraq was the wrong place and time for it.

    But there are other responses that I think we need to look at. About a year after the 9/11 attacks I visited my brother. I flew into Buffalo and took a taxi. The driver was a Sikh, wearing the traditional headgear. I asked him how it was for him right after the attacks. I recognized he was a Sikh, but was he mistaken for a Muslim (or Arab, unfortunately the same thing in some people’s eyes) and was he in any danger. He told me that he had to abandon the traditional headgear and wear a much smaller and less obvious head covering after the attacks, because he was taunted and had been in danger.

    Now it’s unrealistic to expect that there won’t be a minority of people who will react in inappropriate ways, often because they are already filled with rage and hate for other reasons. The major event simply provides them with an excuse to be who they are anyhow.

    We still have a certain strong tradition of freedom. It has been weakened by attacks from various directions. I don’t give either major party a “pass” on this issue. Constitutional freedoms are up for grabs when people are afraid. The one thing a politician can’t survive is appearing soft on terrorism.

    I think that is behind Obama’s vote for the FISA bill, a tragedy in my view, and the Republican sneers about making sure terrorists are read their rights.

    Those are both the result of fear, and they do not do us any credit as a people. In particular I was struck by the phrasing of “reading terrorists their rights.” The fact is that we don’t read “criminals” their rights, we read “people” their rights. Those people may be criminals, but they have rights so that we can determine whether they truly are criminals. People have rights so that we can accurately determine whether they are also terrorists.

    This idea of restricting the government from arbitrarily determining who is good and who is bad and acting on it without accountability is deeply enshrined in our constitution, and derives many of its elements from common law that goes much further back. There is no crime that is so heinous that we should punish an innocent person for it. The very idea that we would determine arbitrarily prior to any process just what sort of person an individual is should strike terror to our hearts.

    It’s quite possible for us to respond to external threats in such a way that we become our own worst enemies. Will we live in fear, or will we make a stand that says that no matter what external terror puts us through we will remain who we are?

    There will be freedoms and conveniences we must give up. We must be prepared for more security at airports (I actually wish it was more vigorous than it is), and for more scrutiny when entering or leaving the country. There are justifiable shortcuts that are necessary. While I oppose FISA as passed, there is certainly a need for wiretapping as part of our security efforts.

    I also don’t think this is a Republican or Democratic issue. If we had had a Democratic president I suspect very similar things would have happened. It’s the result of being on the hot seat, which is not so easy, despite the fluency of some of us who criticize!

    But I think we need to reflect beyond remembering the loss and remembering the sorrow, and get a very clear vision of who we want to be. If we give up who we really are in exchange for security, just what are we securing?

  • Good Decisions on Education in California

    Christianity Today reports on two decisions regarding education in California. In one case, the courts upheld the University of California’s decision to reject certain courses when considering eligibility for admission. In the other, the right of parents without a teaching degree to homeschool.

    Some may see these decisions as contradictory, but that would only be true if you look at them as a question of the place of religion in education. Generally religious parents won in one case, though I should emphasize that not all homeschoolers are Christians, while in the other they lost.

    I think both are appropriate, and I think one makes the other even more important. I think homeschool parents generally do a good job with educating their children, as results on standardized tests tend to show. Yes, there is less exposure to the broader world, and yes, they often don’t learn everything I think they should learn, but they’re not my children.

    I believe evolution should be fully taught in science classes, and until such time as another consensus emerges, something I don’t expect, it should be exclusively taught. But that is for tax supported schools. I believe Christian schools should have the right to set their own curriculum, provided that students can pass the same standardized tests, if any, that are required of public school students.

    At the same time, a university, whether public or private, needs to control admissions and should be permitted to expect students to have studied certain things. Admission to a university is not the same thing as getting out of high school with the minimum effort. As I understand it, one way around these requirements is through passing standardized tests. If the students do know this material, then they can demonstrate it and gain admission.

    I think individual rights and educational responsibility are well-balanced in these rulings, and I hope they are both upheld on appeal.