logos redux

St. Peter famously observed that St. Paul’s writings contained many things “that are hard to understand.” Yet twenty centuries of Christians (ordinary people and clergy) have nevertheless assumed the right and responsibility of interpreting Paul for themselves, without Paul’s help. God expects us to act as though we, the audience, have access to Paul’s meaning, even though we are not Paul himself. The same is true of less authoritative figures, like politicians and public speakers…

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“I am convinced that most of the young men are taught against too narrow a backdrop, and [are still fighting the old battles of the Reformation]. But in reality this is no longer where we are, either in theory or in practice. Actually the battle is being fought against the backdrop of all the religions of the world which have apostatized from the true religion since the foundation of the world…”

Francis Schaeffer, letter dated sometime 1956-1958

Years ago I spoke with Ecuadorian evangelical theologian and author René Padilla about these stories of growth. He said, “Ah, Guillermo, we must ask our church-growth friends two questions: What is church? What is growth?” In other words, mere numerical growth is not sufficient to measure the biblical chruch. Latin American church growth fascinates the number-hunters of North America who see size as the prime measure of growth. Some emphasize the need only for homogenous churches, but the reality of Latin America is that sociological and anthropological categories cannot become our guidelines. Many churches are large, but they are perhaps obese, not healthy. As one church leader told me this year, “We have more births than midwives in our country.”

Crisis and Hope in Latin America by Emilio A. Nunez, 166.

This is pretty good. (Although I would probably represent the “religious fanaticism” he distances himself from. I’ve listed a few of the better quotes below. Some of them come from the author’s conversation with a stranger, filled out with his real answers below.

Mrs. GSP: Do you use a curriculum?
Me: Oh, sure! Absolutely.
Real answer: Give me a break! These kids are 5 years old. What curriculum was involved when you were in kindergarten? As I recall, it was mainly scissors and paste. My wife will talk as long as you want her to about the fact that there’s no real evidence to back up the recent move toward “academic,” full-day kindergarten, and plenty of evidence that young children need more unstructured playtime than most of them get. The real purpose of all this formal schooling is to get the kids out of the house and train them to stand in line and follow instructions while mommy and daddy get back to their ultra-important lives as economic production units. If you break down the impressive-sounding, bureaucratically adumbrated federal list of kindergarten standards, a whole lot of it amounts to learning to count from 1 to 20, learning the alphabet and the months of the year, and learning to tell time…

Mrs. GSP: What do you do about socialization?
Me: Oh, we’ve got a nice support network. They have a circle of friends. They do lots of classes and activities. They go to birthday parties and stuff.
Real answer: My public answer is OK, as far as it goes. But hang on a minute, lady: What do you mean by “socialization”? In a legendary Internet screed called “The Bitter Homeschooler’s Wish List,” Deborah Markus answers this question by observing, “If you’re talking to me and my kids, that means that we do in fact go outside now and then to visit the other human beings on the planet.” Ordinary schools tend to socialize children by way of enclosed, age-homogeneous pods, while home schooling tends to socialize children through a wide range of interactions with older kids, younger kids and adults, as well as peers. It’s not up to me to decide which is better, and I’m pretty sure both methods have their pros and cons. We like the sound of option B, at least for now…

At the time of the 1970 census, there were a reported 15,000 home-schoolers in the entire United States, nearly all of them presumed to be members of religious minorities who objected to the contents or method of public education. By 2007, the Department of Education estimated that there were 1.5 million home-schooled children in the country…

As for the “why” question: We’re not ready to surrender our kids, and ourselves, to a 10-month-a-year, all-day institution whose primary goal, at least at this age, seems to be teaching kids how to function within a 10-month-a-year, all-day institution. Our kids are learning plenty — not exactly the same things other kindergarteners learn, I suppose, but plenty. They’re making friends and having fun. They can go to the beach on gorgeous fall afternoons, or hit zoos and museums on crisp winter mornings, when other kids are sitting at desks doing worksheets about the letter B. Hell, I wish I could do it.

We are in the presence of a lot of Mosses… I thank the Moses generation, but we’ve got to remember that Joshua still had a job to do. As great as Moses was… he didn’t cross over the river to see the promised land.

Barack Obama in Selma, Alabama | March 4, 2007

Not content to be just a mere John the Baptist, just a Moses, no, he must lead the Joshua generation, he must be the Messiah to the new generation of disciples. You can read the full text of the speech here.

Typography from Ronnie Bruce on Vimeo.

The documentary, “Jesus Camp,” released in 2006 and directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, cuts both ways: it is a disturbing look at a particular strand of Evangelicalism, and an equally disturbing glimpse of those who look at them (secular folk and non-Evangelicals).

The film is a bona fide documentary–nothing made up–that ends up being a mockumentary in spite of itself (or perhaps that was intentional?)…

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This weekend the Clayton Community Theater will be performing its rendition of C.S. Lewis’ The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. The production is dramatized by Joseph Robinette…The recent surge of productions of Lewis’ stories raises questions, however, about the limitations and desirability of converting such books into visual media…[I]n a letter to Lance Seiveking, BBC producer, in 1959, Lewis wrote:

“I am absolutely opposed–adamant isn’t in it!–to a TV version. Anthropomorphic animals, when taken out of narrative into actual visibility, always turn into buffoonery or nightmare. At least, with photography.”

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This is nauseating. I’ll sample a few quotes just so you can get a feel for it. Keep in mind that Twitter has done everything imaginable to make it clear that it is a fun, lighthearted, tool for sharing information.

“Last year, Voelz, a pastor, was tweeting at a conference outside Nashville about ways to make the church experience more creative — ways to “make it not suck” — when suddenly it hit him: Twitter.”

“In Seattle, Mars Hill churchgoers regularly tweet throughout the service. In New York City, Trinity Church marked Good Friday by tweeting the Passion play, detailing the stages of Jesus’ crucifixion in short bursts. At Next Level Church, outside Charlotte, N.C., it’s not only O.K. to fuse social-networking technology with prayer; it’s desirable.”

“On Easter Sunday, pastor Todd Hahn prefaced his sermon by saying, “I hope many of you are tweeting this morning about your experience with God.”

“It’s a huge responsibility of a church to leverage whatever’s going on in the broader culture, to connect people to God and to each other,” says Hahn”

So here it is, the comment that has galvanized the debate thus far: “Um, all of the legal defense funds out there, um, they’re looking for people out there with court of appeals experience, because court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don’t make law, I know. Um, um — [laughter] — I know. I’m not promoting it, I’m not advocating it, and, I’m … you know. [laughter]” Obviously, my first reaction is disgust. Such a crass statement of the knowing failure of the judiciary in America to limit themselves to what they are charged with doing is disgusting. At the same time, there are those who will say, look, the law isn’t clear on every eventuality so in clarifying gray areas of course appellate courts make policy. In a sense this is true. Judicial precedent is in a sense policy making in that it sets the policy (in the broad sense of what is to be done) that will be followed in the future in similar situations. I get it. There is a sense in which authoritative interpretation is policy making. But that is not what Sotomayor meant and it is not what she has done.

Sotomayor simply is an activist judge. Consider this example quoted from the New York Times:

“Her most high-profile case involved New Haven’s decision to toss out tests used to evaluate candidates for promotion in the fire department because there were no minority candidates at the top of the list.

She was part of a panel that rejected the challenge brought by white firefighters who scored high but were denied promotion. Frank Ricci, the lead plaintiff, argued that it was unfair he was denied promotion after he had studied intensively for the exam and even paid for special coaching to overcome his dyslexia.”

Many of you no doubt remember this. It was a flagrant example of a judge deciding that her conception of “fairness” (defined as equality of outcome rather than equality of opportunity) trumped the law. This is not simply interpreting a gray area and thus setting precedent. This is making up policy according to one’s own ideology. Further, it could be argued that it is a racist ideology.

If you think that is over the top consider this quote: “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” — Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in her Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law in 2001. Or this: ““Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences,” she said, for jurists who are women and nonwhite, “our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging.”

The foundation of our political system is the rule of law. This goes all the way back to early Puritans such as Samuel Rutherford who wrote the famous treatise Lex Rex (Law is King). When we decide that one’s credentials for a judicial seat have more to do with ethnic identity, personal experiences or potential for empathy than commitment to reading, understanding and applying the law as it is established we have forgone the rule of law and established an oligarchy. What is worse, however, is that we have established an oligarchy masquerading as a Liberal democracy. Far be it from me to assume unquestioningly that Liberal democracy is the end-all-be-all for political ills, but a government that pretends to be operating on principles of freedom and the rule of law, while at the same time subverting the law and confiscating power to themselves is surely to be despised.