Prisoners of Geography

  The name may say it all; the book makes and supports a claim that seems common in geopolitical thought. However, the subtitle's claim is a bit of a stretch: can ten maps (even with insightful explanations) really explain all you need to know about global politics? Maybe a better subtitle might have been "Ten maps that will give you a firm foundation in global political realities," but obviously this more tempered claim would be less marketable. Actually, the subtitle for the Turkish edition would do as well for the English edition, "10 Maps that change the world's fate."

  Regardless of all that, Prisoners of Geography by Tim Marshall (2019) is an instructive and enjoyable read, so far. I've read the Introduction and the first map's explanation, Russia. A few quotes from this first 15% of the book seem worthwhile.

"So it is with all nations, big and small. The landscape imprisons their leaders, giving them fewer choices and less room to manoeuvre than you might think." (pg vii. British edition explains British spellings.) 

"Overall there is no one geographical factor that is more important than any other. Mountains are no more important than deserts, nor rivers than jungles. In different parts of the planet, different geographical features are among the dominant factors in determining what people can and cannot do." (pg viii)

 "By 2004, just fifteen years from 1989, every single former Warsaw Pact state bar Russia was in NATO or the European Union." (pg 7)

"Here was a man [Tsar Ivan the Terrible] to give support to the theory that individuals can change history." (pg 8)

"... Rule A, Lesson One, in 'Diplomacy for Beginners': when faced with what is considered an existential threat, a great power will use force." (pg 17-18)

    Hopefully this gives you a taste of the book; I may post more quotes along the way, but this seems like a book that could inform and enhance lots of conversations. I should mention that it's not 'a heavy read'; if you read the news regularly, you should have a sufficient basis of knowledge to read this book.

Adorning the Dark

  I highlighted much more of Andrew Peterson's Adorning the Dark than what appears below when I was reading it early this year, but these are the pieces that I wanted to share here. It is a work about art and 'a life work'; it is also about developing into who we are able to be, not just who we want to be. It deals with weaknesses that accompany strengths; it speaks of grace. It acted as a perfect complement to a book I'd read shortly before it, Tim Keller's Every Good Endeavor, which spoke of a biblical view of work more broadly and deeply. Adorning the Dark was like an illustration of one person's working out of those principles. Below I offer a few of the thoughts that I found meaningful or encouraging. 

Since we were made to glorify God, worship happens when someone is doing exactly what he or she was made to do. (p. 17). 

God, however, never takes his eyes off me, and on my good days I believe that he is smiling, never demanding an answer other than the fact of myself. I exist as his redeemed creation, and that is, pleasantly, enough for him. (p. 20). 

Dahl remembered what it was like to be a little boy. And he remembered that it is terrifying. It reminded me how vital it is that Christians bend low and speak tenderly to the children in our lives. These boys and girls at our churches, in our schools, down the street, are living a harrowing adventure. Every one of them falls into one of two categories: wounded, or soon-to-be-wounded. The depth and nature of those wounds will vary, but they’re all malleable souls in a world clanging with hammer blows. The bigger they get, the easier the target.

[...]

Those of us who write, who sing, who paint, must remember that to a child a song may glow like a nightlight in a scary bedroom. It may be the only thing holding back the monsters. That story may be the only beautiful, true thing that makes it through all the ugliness of a little girl’s world to rest in her secret heart. May we take that seriously. It is our job, it is our ministry, it is the sword we swing in the Kingdom, to remind children that the good guys win, that the stories are true, and that a fool’s hope may be the best kind. (p. 106). 

I’ll probably always be self-conscious, so the battle to make something out of nothing at all will rage on, and I’ll have to fight it in the familiar territory of selfishness until the Spirit winnows my work into something loving and lovable. I’m no longer surprised by my capacity for self-doubt, but I’ve learned that the only way to victory is to lose myself, to surrender to sacredness—which is safer than insecurity. I have to accept the fact that I’m beloved by God. That’s it. Compared to that, the songs don’t matter so much—a realization which has the surprising consequence of making them easier to write. (p. 26). 

All you really have is your willingness to fail, coupled with the mountain of evidence that the Maker has never left nor forsaken you. (p. 34). 

Either you’re willing to steward the gift God gave you by stepping into the ring and fighting for it, or you spend your life in training, cashing in excuse after excuse until there’s no time left, no fight left, no song, no story. (p. 108). 

Learning-Teaching and Loving-Being Angry - thoughts from Freire (and a bit beyond)

  Several years ago, Paulo Freire's work, Pedagogy of Freedom was recommended to me as a favorite work. While I got it shortly thereafter, I am just now getting around to reading it, and it has most certainly been worth it. It immediately joins my list of favorite books on good teaching such as Parker Palmer's The Courage to Teach, Peter Elbow's various works (supposedly on teaching writing, but much more widely applicable), and Lisa Delpit's Other People's Children. 

There is, in fact, no teaching without learning. One requires the other. And the subject of each, despite their obvious differences, cannot be educated to the status of object. Whoever teaches learns in the act of teaching, and whoever learns teaches in the act of learning.  

[...]

To learn, then, logically precedes to teach. In other words, to teach is part of the very fabric of learning. This is true to such an extent that I do not hesitate to say that there is no valid teaching from which there does not emerge something learned and through which the learner does not become capable of recreating and remaking what has been thought. In essence, teaching that does not emerge from the experience of learning cannot be learned by anyone. 

When we live our lives with the authenticity demanded by the practice of teaching that is also learning and learning that is also teaching, we are participating in a total experience that is simultaneously directive, political, ideological, gnostic, pedagogical, aesthetic, and ethical. In this experience the beautiful, the decent, and the serious form a circle with hands joined. (pp. 31-32). 

The kind of education that does not recognize the right to express appropriate anger against injustice, against disloyalty, against the negation of love, against exploitation, and against violence fails to see the educational role implicit in the expression of these feelings. (p. 45). 

One of the most important tasks of critical educational practice is to make possible the conditions in which the learners, in their interaction with one another and with their teachers, engage in the experience of assuming themselves as social, historical, thinking, communicating, transformative, creative persons; dreamers of possible utopias, capable of being angry because of a capacity to love. Capable of assuming themselves as “subject” because of the capacity to recognize themselves as “object.”  (pp. 45-46). 

To question, to search, and to research are parts of the nature of teaching practice. What is necessary is that, in their ongoing education, teachers consider themselves researchers because they are teachers.

 (p. 130, footnote 5). 

[The bold emphasis is mine throughout the above quotations.]

 I found the thoughts on the appropriateness of anger to be particularly interesting as I've been giving thought to this topic as part of a group study that I was invited to join. The readings are in Turkish, but the English edition is called "Putting Off Anger." So far, it has been valuable, and it has talked also about proper anger. 

 Random question I've had recently: What situations made Jesus angry in the New Testament?  

Shame in the Community of Faith

  Early in the pandemic season, I mentioned that I had been reading Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity by David deSilva, and it came up again in my 2020 Reading List.  Well, I'm still working my way through it, and after nearly every reading I want to tell someone how much I like it and get someone else to read it. 

  The book starts with a valuable discussion of how to engage meaningfully with honor-shame language in Scripture, particularly if you are from a 'Western' culture. It ranges across the New Testament and would make an excellent reference tool on the title subjects. Below I want to share some quotes from the book.

Regarding Jesus

No member of the Jewish community or the Greco-Roman society would have come to faith or joined the Christian movement without first accepting that God’s perspective on what kind of behavior merits honor differs exceedingly from the perspective of human beings, since the message about Jesus is that both the Jewish and Gentile leaders of Jerusalem evaluated Jesus, his convictions and his deeds as meriting a shameful death, but God overturned their evaluation of Jesus by raising him from the dead and seating him at God’s own right hand as Lord. (p. 51). 

Regarding community

One’s fellow believers will be the most visible and, in many senses, the most available reflection of God’s estimation of the individual, and so the New Testament authors are deeply concerned with building up a strong community of faith that will reinforce individual commitment to the group. [...]

They were to be family, a call that was all the more essential given the networks of relationships that a believer could potentially lose in the ancient world. This kinship was to extend beyond the local group to the provision of hospitality to traveling sisters and brothers. Hospitality in the early church served to create strong bonds between local churches, [...] The love of sisters and brothers of Christ is most needed where the censure of society is most keenly felt. (p. 59-60)

Regarding being shamed

Because the unbelievers will use the power of shaming to impose their values on the believers, and to call them back to a way of life that supports and perpetuates the values of the non-Christian culture, it is imperative that the believers’ sense of worth be detached from the opinion of unbelievers. (p. 61) 

To be shamed by the shameless is ultimately no shame at all. (p. 63)

[Referring to the beatitude regarding being reviled and persecuted...] The fact that Jews had for centuries revered the names of Jeremiah and Isaiah overturns any shame that their kings might have tried to impose upon them. The followers of Jesus can have the same confidence when they encounter impositions of dishonor from outside. (p. 68). 

Regarding responding to shaming 

The honorable person subjected to insult or to some other challenge to honor is culturally conditioned to retaliate, to offer a riposte (see discussion in chapter one) that will counter the challenge and preserve honor in the public eye intact. Christians confronted with such attacks on their honor as verbal challenges, reproachful speech and even physical affronts would be sorely tempted to respond in kind, playing out the challenge-riposte game before the onlookers. Beginning with Jesus, however, Christian leaders sought to cultivate a specifically Christian riposte— the believer is allowed to respond to the challenges made against his or her honor, but directed to do so in such a way as reflects to the outside world the virtues and values of the Christian group. You have heard that it was said, “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.” But I say to you, Do not resist an evildoer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also; and if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well; and if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. (Mt 5:38-41; see also Mt 5:44; Lk 6:28, 35)

[...]

Followers of Jesus overcome challenges to honor not through using the same currency of insult or violence that the outside world throws at them, but rather they meet hostility with generosity, violence with courageous refusal to use violence, curse with blessing from God’s inexhaustible resources of goodness and kindness. Paul expands on the teaching of Jesus by urging the Christian to “take thought for what is noble in the sight of all” (Rom 12:17) rather than repaying “evil for evil.” One finds in Paul and 1 Peter a deep concern to demonstrate to outsiders that being Christian is in fact honorable. (p. 70-71)

 This book has easily joined my favorites on the topic of honor, shame, and their surrounding topics, along with Roland Muller's Honor and Shame and Jackson Wu's One Gospel for All Nations. It is somewhat more academic but not in an unreadable way at all. Overall, it is continuing to add significantly to my collection of thoughts on this topic, many of which have been gathered here over the years.

Anticipation, summarized by Wodehouse

"Few things are so pleasant as the anticipation of them."

~ P. G. Wodehouse, The Adventures of Sally

Teaching Academic Reading: a method including the Academic Word List

  It was frustration and some level of despair with teaching Academic Reading that pushed me to do an MA in TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) several years ago. Now, two years after completing that degree, my academic reading classes are still the ones most likely to frustrate me, but I've learned a lot over the last 6 years. I am now completing my thirteenth one-semester, EAP class focused on Academic Reading and Writing for first-year students. (EAP stands for English for Academic Purposes.)

 When I started, I was given a variety of material and a lot of freedom to design the classes however I wanted. These classes are specific to the students' department/field of study, and that first class was with the History department. I love studying history, so it was an ideal match! 

  The problem was my lack of experience and knowledge: 

How do you teach someone who already knows how to read, how to read better? 

  I mean, I know how to read, and so do they. Also, I know how to read academic material quite well, but that's a really personal skill, or at least it feels like it. So, there was a lot of trial and error, and I began accumulating experience, often of things that didn't work well.

 Eventually, I was transferred to teaching EAP classes for Political Science and International Relations (interesting!) and Economics (not so interesting!) departments. These classes (with my MA teachers' guidance) pointed me to a central principle for teaching EAP classes: 

I'm not the expert; the students are. 

  How can I teach economics students when I don't know economics? Well, the students get to be the experts, and I tell them so! Suddenly the class becomes more collaborative because this principles suggests certain corollaries. The students answer a survey in the first week of class each semester choosing which topics we will discuss that semester and also indicating which skill areas they feel the need to learn. That's the first step in the method.

   Of course, I also bring an expertise to the classroom: 

My job is to provide shortcuts and productive pathways that students can travel for streamlined learning.  

  What does this look like? Well, one key area of learning for university-level reading is field-specific vocabulary. Every field of study has its own specialized vocabulary; every student needs to learn these, but the stakes are raised for those who have spent fewer years using English regularly. 

  Years ago, the Academic Word List was researched and published; Oxford now has a similar list. However, these are somewhat blunt tools; they merely tell the reader what words they are likely to encounter throughout the ENTIRE university campus. While useful, these tools don't tell students what words to focus on and try using this week for this topic. However, they can!

  Before assigning each reading in class each week, I take the text from whatever article we are reading, and I pass it through this text analyzer. 

   Then, I copy and paste the list of words produced by that into Excel and copy just the list of single words. 

   Then, I paste that into this List Comparison tool. On the other side, I paste the AWL words (from the PDF at the above site.)

  This tells me, which AWL words are in the assigned text. I can then prioritize the ones that are most crucial to the reading, while I can also note which ones have cognates in the students' native languages. I keep a list of all these AWL words throughout the semester; and by again using the List Comparison tool, I know what AWL words have been shared before and which ones are new this week. In this way, we can avoid excessive repetition.

  One final benefit of this process is that by scanning the original text analysis, I can note any key collocations or expressions that may be important for this text as well. These may not be on the Academic Word List, but they can be really useful for the students. This is especially true for noun-preposition combinations.

 Where do I get my articles for the readings? Well, from a variety of sources. However, two of the best sources for appropriate-length, academic-level readings are JSTOR Daily and the Council on Foreign Relations. The particular example used above came from JSTOR Daily, "The Bold Future of the Outer Space Treaty." 

  Naturally, having learned the most relevant vocabulary for their (class-chosen) topic and having read an article on it, the students are prepared to share some of their own thoughts on the topic. Thus, there's usually a follow-up writing assignment. This process can help with one final principle that Dana Ferris mentions:

“Similarly, students should be encouraged to generate key vocabulary for a specific piece of writing.” Ferris (Supporting Multilingual Writers in EAP, 154)

Responsibility-Independence & Second Languages Entrapping Thirds

Responsibility was the inevitable price one had to pay for independence; irresponsibility was something which, in the very nature of things, could not co-exist with independence.

Commodore Hornblower (p. 230). Kindle Edition. 

[While trying to speak French...] But conversation did not proceed smoothly, with Hornblower having laboriously to build up his sentences beforehand and to avoid the easy descent into Spanish which was liable to entrap him whenever he began to think in a foreign tongue.

Flying Colours (p. 98). Kindle Edition. 

 One of the three epic series that I re-read regularly, probably every three-ish years, is the Hornblower saga by C. S. Forester. (The others being Tolkien's Middle Earth works and Herbert's Dune saga.) Anyways, I recently finished reading Hornblower again and pulled out these two lovely quotes. The first is a bit of sage wisdom [is there another type?!] which seems especially applicable to parents raising children... and everyone else. 

  The second quote is a rather sympathetic insight of the ambush laid for anyone who has dabbled in third or fourth languages. Whichever non-native language is strongest is always lingering just over the horizon to ensnare the speaker in their other languages, occasionally even twisting the native language itself! 

Photo by Martin Laprise on Unsplash

A White Stone, with a Secret Name

Photo by Who’s Denilo ?

  In my recent reading of Adorning the Dark, a passage from this old 'unspoken' sermon on 'The New Name' by George MacDonald was mentioned. I've included some excerpts below. While there are many places in the Scriptures where the communal or corporate identities of God's followers are emphasized, the particular verse in this sermon is strikingly focused on the individual. It is sourced in the promise of Jesus:

To the one who conquers I will give some of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, with a new name written on the stone that no one knows except the one who receives it.’ 

Revelation 2:17b

Photo by Edgar Soto

The true name is one which expresses the character, the nature, the being, the meaning of the person who bears it. It is the man's own symbol,--his soul's picture, in a word,--the sign which belongs to him and to no one else. Who can give a man this, his own name? God alone.

...

God's name for a man must then be the expression in a mystical word--a word of that language which all who have overcome understand--of his own idea of the man, that being whom he had in his thought when he began to make the child, and whom he kept in his thought through the long process of creation that went to realize the idea. To tell the name is to seal the success--to say, "In thee also I am well pleased."
...

To him who climbs on the stair of all his God-born efforts and God-given victories up to the height of his being--that of looking face to face upon his ideal self in the bosom of the Father--God's him, realized in him through the Father's love in the Elder Brother's devotion--to him God gives the new name written.
...

But I leave this, because that which follows embraces and intensifies this individuality of relation in a fuller development of the truth. For the name is one "which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it." Not only then has each man his individual relation to God, but each man has his peculiar relation to God. He is to God a peculiar being, made after his own fashion, and that of no one else; for when he is perfected he shall receive the new name which no one else can understand. Hence he can worship God as no man else can worship him,-- can understand God as no man else can understand him. This or that man may understand God more, may understand God better than he, but no other man can understand God as he understands him. God give me grace to be humble before thee, my brother, that I drag not my simulacrum of thee before the judgment-seat of the unjust judge, but look up to thyself for what revelation of God thou and no one else canst give. As the fir-tree lifts up itself with a far different need from the need of the palm-tree, so does each man stand before God, and lift up a different humanity to the common Father. And for each God has a different response. With every man he has a secret--the secret of the new name. In every man there is a loneliness, an inner chamber of peculiar life into which God only can enter. I say not it is the innermost chamber--but a chamber into which no brother, nay, no sister can come.

From this it follows that there is a chamber also--(O God, humble and accept my speech)--a chamber in God himself, into which none can enter but the one, the individual, the peculiar man,--out of which chamber that man has to bring revelation and strength for his brethren. This is that for which he was made--to reveal the secret things of the Father.
...

And what an end lies before us! To have a consciousness of our own ideal being flashed into us from the thought of God! Surely for this may well give way all our paltry self-consciousnesses, our self-admirations and self-worships! Surely to know what he thinks about us will pale out of our souls all our thoughts about ourselves! and we may well hold them loosely now, and be ready to let them go.
...

[Application:]
Ambition is the desire to be above one's neighbour; and here there is no possibility of comparison with one's neighbour: no one knows what the white stone contains except the man who receives it. Here is room for endless aspiration towards the unseen ideal; none for ambition. Ambition would only be higher than others; aspiration would be high. Relative worth is not only unknown--to the children of the kingdom it is unknowable.

(emphasis added)

Source: http://www.online-literature.com/george-macdonald/unspoken-sermons/5/

Photo by bantersnaps

Wasteful Wardens of the Planet

  This is a hard topic to write about. It's easier to express the ideas in speech, but then the details don't usually all get explored before the conversation wonders. So, in keeping with one of the purposes of this blog, I am going to try again to express the question of "Humans as Wasteful Wardens." I deleted my first attempt a couple years ago, but the idea keeps coming up. So, let me try to outline its key pieces.

1. I believe that humans were designed to be gardeners, stewards of the earth - or, maybe even of the galaxy! There is a care and compassion inherent to gardening that is so natural that it may not get much thought. Gardeners seek fruit or flowers, which requires healthy plants, which require healthy soil, which requires investment of time and work and attention and study. Shouldn't that be us all around the world - each in our own plot of land, seeking healthy provision and beauty and flourishing?
2. I believe that our Maker also designed us to multiply humans who would reflect the Maker's own image partially through elaborating on the designs built into the world. In other words, the world had been designed flawless but still had space for improvement, even in Eden! Shouldn't we be pursuing the development of what was given, whether physical or mental or spiritual or social?
3. I believe in entropy: the world is falling into disorder, and inevitably we are increasing that disorder. Since its goodness was shattered, this universe has been gradually deteriorating. Theologically, we might speak of 'sin'; scientifically, we might speak of 'the second law of thermodynamics'. Both concepts tell us that this world is not what it once was and is headed for destruction. What's worse is that we are involved, as a cause. Shouldn't we be fighting against the destruction?

  To summarize, while the world was designed to be good for humanity, humanity was also designed to be good for the world. However, our daily existence shows us that often the world is not good for us, and we are often not good for it. This should naturally lead to a bad end. Is there another way? 

Turkish kebab

 On the one hand, I'd really like to be 'green,' but I can't commit to greenness as an ideology. I can't get past its meaningless, vicious cycle. Which one? Well, imagine that I ate some kebab... at some point, I would need to wash the plate. Now, I could save it with lots of other dirty dishes and run it through the dishwasher, or I could just wash it by hand. They both consume resources though different amounts of different resources with different fall-out for the health of the earth, its systems, and my co-inhabitants. I also have the option of NOT washing the plate - so as to save water and to prevent chemical pollution. However, that may end up with me in the hospital consuming vastly more resources than I otherwise would have. In fact, no option removes me as a consumer and polluter. (Oh, and we didn't touch on the topic of the good kebab that God provided; that would be another place to consider how we are 'gardening our world'.) In every case, it feels like I am wasting or destroying part of the exact thing that I was to be enhancing, the world that I was made a steward of! I am not suggesting here that this is my only effect on the earth; I am simply suggesting that it seems inevitable that I will have some negative impact. 

 Here's a fascinating case study: This BBC article on deep sea mining shows plainly how we humans struggle to balance exploring, appreciating, and using the resources that we find. So, I am left to wonder: Can we garden without greed? Can we explore without exploitation? Can we contribute while we consume? Can we enhance while we expand? Those who love the God revealed in the Bible should be at the forefront of seeking ways to do this; that was the original design! Of course, we can't "save the planet," but we should certainly care for it as well as we can. As in so many other areas, we must value what we have been given without worshipping it. At the same time, we must engage in brokenness without trying to become the Savior.  

  Graciously, there is a solution from outside the system. If the Designer of the world were to engage the world in healing by sending help from outside the system, healing would become possible at more than a temporary or partial level. The Bible's claim is that such help has and will come. So, while recognizing the temporal hopelessness of saving the environment, it is possible for a person to garden in the world as best as they know how and also to look for a Healer who will bring in the opposite of entropy! Isaiah describes The One who will bring an increase of peace without end (9:7). How will goodness increase forever? I don't know, but I am eager to be shown.

  For thought or comment: 

• How can we apply ourselves (individually or communally) to gardening whatever space we have?
• Where can we create beauty around us?
• What do I see that needs restoring near me?
• What would I do differently if I saw myself as steward of the earth and took responsibility for such a stewardship of land and co-inhabitants?

on Books and Reading - encountering Andrew Peterson's thoughts

  I have really been refreshed and gladdened by Andrew Peterson's book, Adorning the Dark (with the inexplicable exception of chapter 6). There is much to appreciate in this memoir-philosophy of life and art. For now though, I just want to comment on two statements he makes about reading and books.

“Too often we retreat into the pages of our longing only to return disconsolate to the kitchen or the classroom—we’re escaping from and not to.” (66)

  This first comment (and the chapter that precedes it) hints at my reality as a teenager; it describes when books were my refuge in a sense that was nearly ultimate. One of the most significant spiritual battles in my life was quitting a particular book - and series - because of the way it was dominating my time one summer. Books are a beautiful escape unless they become Ultimate; then they can become a prison so lovely that we may not even recognize our cage. 

“[These novels] strike me as a way to pass the time rather than to enrich it.” (66)

  When I was a child, we had a category of books called "Purple Door" books because of a particular book that my sister and I loved so much that we convinced my mom to read it in her rare and valuable reading time. She didn't love it so much. She explained to us that it would never be a classic even though it was a nice read. That categorization has stuck with me ever since. Here Peterson defines that category exactly: 

short words are harder

  A hundred plus years ago, G. K. Chesterton remarked upon the dangerous laziness of long words and the difficulty and effort required to put things into short words. An extract of his thought seem worth sharing. It is worth thinking about how we think (or not), and then how we speak (or not)! 

Most of the machinery of modern language is labour-saving machinery; and it saves mental labour very much more than it ought. Scientific phrases are used like scientific wheels and piston-rods to make swifter and smoother yet the path of the comfortable. Long words go rattling by us like long railway trains. We know they are carrying thousands who are too tired or too indolent to walk and think for themselves. It is a good exercise to try for once in a way to express any opinion one holds in words of one syllable. If you say "The social utility of the indeterminate sentence is recognized by all criminologists as a part of our sociological evolution towards a more humane and scientific view of punishment," you can go on talking like that for hours with hardly a movement of the gray matter inside your skull. But if you begin "I wish Jones to go to gaol and Brown to say when Jones shall come out," you will discover, with a thrill of horror, that you are obliged to think. The long words are not the hard words, it is the short words that are hard. There is much more metaphysical subtlety in the word "damn" than in the word "degeneration."

   But these long comfortable words that save modern people the toil of reasoning have one particular aspect in which they are especially ruinous and confusing. This difficulty occurs when the same long word is used in different connections to mean quite different things. Thus, to take a well-known instance, the word "idealist" has one meaning as a piece of philosophy and quite another as a piece of moral rhetoric. In the same way the scientific materialists have had just reason to complain of people mixing up "materialist" as a term of cosmology with "materialist" as a moral taunt. So, to take a cheaper instance, the man who hates "progressives" in London always calls himself a "progressive" in South Africa.

G. K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, ch. 8. (emphasis added)

A Handout on Linkers or Logical Connectors

  Below is a graphic organizer that I made a few years ago to serve as a guide for how to think about and teach 'linkers' or 'connectors' or whatever you prefer to call them. These devices that help stitch together a text seem to have a million names, confusing for students and confusing for teachers. I suppose this comes from their variety of roles they play and the diversity that is displayed in them. The complexity and richness of linking devices can add much to the power of our writing or speaking, so they are well worth getting to know intimately for any and all of us.

While realizing that it could be much more attractive, I am no longer able to edit the original, so I figured I'd just share it like this.

Is your boss only satisfied with your best work?

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light (Matthew 11:28–30). 

  Discussing Matthew 11:28-30, Tim Keller says the following in regard to working and resting as a follower of Jesus Christ.

[Jesus] is the only boss who will not drive you into the ground, the only audience that does not need your best performance in order to be satisfied with you. Why is this? Because his work for you is finished. 

In fact, the very definition of a Christian is someone who not only admires Jesus, emulates Jesus, and obeys Jesus, but who “rests in the finished work of Christ” instead of his or her own. Remember, God was able to rest in Genesis 2, verses 1–3 only because his creative work was finished. And a Christian is able to rest only because God’s redemptive work is likewise finished in Christ. When the work under the work has been satisfied by the Son, all that’s left for us to do is to serve the work we’ve been given by the Father.

Keller, Timothy. Every Good Endeavor (p. 238). Kindle Edition.  (emphasis added)

Earlier...

All of us are haunted by the work under the work—that need to prove and save ourselves, to gain a sense of worth and identity. (p. 234). 

Jesus' 5 Evidences that God was/is His Father

  A month ago, I posted 8 Arguments for the Bible's Reliability; now I want to share something that is tangentially related, the reasons that Jesus is recorded to have given for being from the Heavenly Father. John 5:18 says, "This was why the Jews were seeking all the more to kill him, because not only was he breaking the Sabbath, but he was even calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God." (ESV, emphasis added) In the verses following that, Jesus lists several results of God being his father.  These deal with how his character and his actions reflect those of the Father.

 Then, in John 5:30-47, Jesus gives a series of arguments about why he should be accepted as whom he says he is. These are as follows:

1.  Jesus himself claims God is his father (Jn 5:31, cf vs 17-18).
2.  John the Baptist also attested to this truth (Jn 5:32-36; cf 1:29-35; 3:22ff).
3.  The "works" or actions - including the healing that spawned this discussion - attest to the origin of Jesus (Jn 5:36; cf 3:2; 5:1-17). 
4.  The Father who sent him has also attested to this truth (Jn 5:37-38; cf 12:27-30; Matthew 3:16-17; 17:5).
5.  The Scriptures bear witness to him (Jn 5:39-40; cf Jn 1:45; 2:17).
• Moses' writings, as a subset of Scripture, witness to the person of Jesus (Jn 5:45-47; cf Jn 3:14; 6:32; witnesses about the Christ from Moses' writings).  

  It is interesting that each of these points has support from within the Gospel of John, mostly prior to this account. These are evidences which the listeners could evaluate, events or sayings they were already apparently familiar with. (Mt 3:16-17 shows that God had already spoken from heaven publicly once, in addition to the second-hand recounting of that event that John given in John 1.)

 Now, the connection to the previous posts is a bit clearer. Presuming we accept the Gospel accounts as reliable, then the arguments given here are ones that must be given weight. Jesus did not call on people to embrace his claims in a vacuum or without due consideration. Nor did he simply overwhelm them with the miraculous in such a way that a series of illusions could be the basis of his claim(s). The evidences were varied and often independent. 

  So I ask, what would it take to convince you or I, reasonable people, that the apparently impossible was actually possible? What proofs should we require to believe that God became a man, that the Son of God walked this earth in human flesh? If this is not denied a priori, what would you look for as evidence and how would this relate to the proofs that were given?  

  One final point that should be mentioned is that these are not the only proofs that either the New Testament or Jesus himself is recorded as giving to support who he was and is. The anecdote in John 1:47-51 makes this clear. As well, here's another one I came across in my reading recently.

• Matthew 12:38-41 - Jesus foretold that there would be a parallel between his burial and resurrection and the life of the prophet Jonah. This is not a prophecy by Jonah, but rather Jesus himself prophesying about what will happen and using a familiar story as the pivot point. (cf Mt 17:22-23)

8 Perspectives on the Bible's Reliability

  For quite some time, I have been making a collection of different approaches to dealing with the reliability of the Bible. My recent post regarding undesigned coincidences in the New Testament is coincidental to this ongoing collection. The interesting thing about such a discussion is that it has to be held in different ways with different people. The reasons that my Muslim friends doubt the reliability of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures are different from those that my atheist, agnostic, or Christian-raised-but-still-wrestling-with-the-idea friends will have. Beyond that, when my kids want to know why I accept one collection of Scriptures as divinely-given and reliable but not another collection, the discussions are again upended. 

  What I propose to give below is not so much an argument for the reliability of Scripture as it is a collection of the different ways that I have seen and heard the Scriptures argued for. Personally, I find certain arguments more compelling than others, but that is not really the point here. My point is to collect them as group. Note that these are also not arguments for Scripture's inerrancy or inspiration directly; that is relevant, but not the focus here.  

1. Literary structures - This argument has particular force in relation to the idea that Scripture was redacted over generations. If this is so, the structural unity across individual works and swaths of works is staggering. On the other hand, if the writings are works by individual authors, this unity makes much more sense. This particularly came home to me as I researched what became my article on blessing in Genesis, a book that many believe is heavily redacted or pieced together.  

2. Internal claims - The Bible itself claims to be reliable and God-sent; it claims to be unchanging. One may immediately object that this is a circular argument; however, imagine if the Bible made no such claim! In other words, the Bible's claim to divine origin and unchanging character and content is significant for faith. 

  In line with this, the Bible also mentions many other sources that could have been included in the biblical canon; some of those were by the same authors whose other writings are included. So, alongside its claims to reliability and divine sanction, the Bible claims a certain selectivity or exclusivity. Not all of Paul's or the prophets' or the chroniclers' writings were equal or (regarded as) Scripture. 

3. Manuscript evidences - This argument for the reliability of the biblical texts is an overwhelming one when compared to any other ancient document (although the claims of Scripture are correspondingly extraordinary.) Still, there are over 5,800 Greek manuscripts of the New Testament besides about 20,000 manuscripts of ancient translations into other languages. Separately, the Old Testament Scriptures have thousands of manuscripts in Hebrew, plus translations. (A hard number of OT manuscripts is surprisingly hard to find given how common the 5,800 number is for NT manuscripts: this site has the most concrete number I could find.)

   Not only is there an argument based on the massive number of manuscripts that were preserved, but there is also the consistency of the text that has been seen. As the number of manuscripts available to scholars has exploded in the last couple centuries, Christian doctrine has not needed to change or be adjusted. There have been places where copying or spelling errors have become evident, but this does not undermine a claim to reliability. Christians do not claim that any single published copy is a perfect copy of the entire Scripture. Instead, Christian belief is that the original manuscripts were perfectly reliable, and we have received reliable copies of them.

4. Historical progression of acceptance - This argument rests on the fact that the Bible presents a 'telescoping' view of its revelation. In other words, each section builds on the preceding one; Moses is built on by Samuel; Samuel and Moses are built on by David and Solomon; the prophets built on those that preceded them; Jesus (as quoted, though he did not write any of the New Testament himself) built on the Old Testament, and the disciples and earliest Christian witnesses built on all that preceding revelation. Below are a few thoughts from the NT concerning the OT:  

- Jesus’ acceptance of OT (Mt 23:35; Lk 11:51; Lk 24:25, 27, 32, 44-48; Jn 5:45-47; his regular quotation & amplification, references to fulfillment and the prophets; Mt 21:42; Lk 4:16-21; 22:37; Jn 7:[38], 42; 10:34-36; 13:18; 17:12; 19:12)

- Jesus' disciples/apostles' acceptance (Jn 1:45; Lk 24:32; Acts 13:27; constant quotation and allusion)

- There is also acceptance of other NT writers even within the NT - Peter accepts Paul as a Scripture writer (2 Peter 3:15-16) where he references Paul's writings among 'the other Scriptures.' 

   One might ask why Moses' original readers accepted his writings. I would suggest that minimally these were the people who had been at Mount Sinai and had heard the words and been terrified at the presence of God. Thus, their acceptance was not simplistic; it was multi-faceted, through faith and experience. With a bit of thought, one can extrapolate further along these lines for Moses' and others' writings.

5. Consistency with the experience world - The subjectiveness of this argument does not necessarily blunt its impact. The world described in the Bible matches the one we experience. Among other things, in the Bible we are led to expect a world of great beauty and humans made 'in the image of a good God' while we are also told that an enemy has brought ruin and destruction upon all the creation. Thus, what is called 'natural revelation' matches both the glories and horrors that we see and hear.

6. Undesigned coincidences - With the recent post on this, I will not extrapolate much, but this is similar to the 'literary structures' argument. The biblical writings themselves often confirm and support each other in the sorts of ways that argue for their authenticity as eyewitness accounts.

 

7. Archaeology - The biblical accounts have shown time and again that they are accurate in historical details, at least to the extent that they care to draw attention to them and that we have found independent witness to the same events. This area is also where there are still many questions and constant developments. I would suggest that no single artifact could sufficiently prove or disprove such a book, not even Noah's Ark in full preservation in the Mountains of Ararat. However, some of the archaeological support of Scripture has offered stunning corroboration in its minute detail. 

8. Impact on art, history, and culture - The little book, "Christianity: Fundamental Teachings" that I mentioned being published by the Turkish Church says it this way, "The Holy Bible is the most influential and successful work ever witnessed" (pg 74). It goes on to list the Bible's influence in inspiring "world literature, fine art, architecture, music, paintings, and other branches of art" as well as influencing the development of science, human rights, gender equality, and democracy. 

Reading in 2020 + 2020 Readings (and Listenings)

  2020 was an unusual year in so many respects. Two of those reasons have been the available time for reading and the current will for reading. On the one hand, the events of the year led to extra space and time at home, which invited extra reading and study. In many ways, this was an ideal time to try to catch up on long-awaited reading projects, to find new literary friends and mentors. 

  On the other hand, as a couple friends and I have discussed, the events of the year often made it quite difficult to focus on deeper or more extensive reading. The exact reasons for this are not clear to me, but it was interesting to hear this theme among friends who love to read. Due to this second factor, I read the majority of the books listed here during the earlier part of the year. 

   And now, the tenth annual list of recommended readings:

Christian Life and Belief

Every Good Endeavor by Tim Keller (2012) - If I were going to recommend a single book this year, it would be this book on work. It might be better to describe it as a book on 'how to steward our time, energy, giftings, and environment.' It is a book about how to be the gardeners we were designed to be. If you work, and if you seek to follow the Bible, this book would probably have areas that would benefit you in your living and thinking. 

Christianity: Fundamental Teachings by The Joint Commission of Churches in Turkey (2017) - This is an excellent consideration of biblical faith, translated from Turkish. It is the work of a commission including the Catholic, Orthodox, and conservative Protestant believers proclaiming the core of faith based on the Bible. I can almost hear the skepticism about such a work growing in your mind. I'd suggest buying it and reading it first. (If you'd like it in hard copy, message me. I can buy copies locally quite easily.) 

Practically, one major function of the book locally was showing the unity of the faith in the face of polemic opposition. Another major function was a pastoral distillation of the central tenets of the Christian faith. It fulfilled both of these functions well.  (A friend did a review of it at ETS this year; that also might be of interest to some.)

Orthodoxy by G. K. Chesterton (1908) - I listened to Chesterton's Orthodoxy as an audiobook this year. He has a delightful way with words! Furthermore, the reactions to, disagreements with, or attacks on Christianity, which he dealt with over a century ago, are surprisingly familiar today. Thus, his response to them, which is semi-autobiographical, also still resonates. This might sound as if he's writing high philosophy against great opponents, but in much of the book, his antagonist is within - his doubts, fears, beliefs, and opinions. There was much to ponder and appreciate here.

Hidden in Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts by Lydia McGrew - A cousin recommended this book to me a couple months back as having an interesting line of evidence for the reliability of the New Testament. Since it was free on Kindle Unlimited, I decided to look at it while we have the free trial. I'd never heard the argument for undesigned coincidences developed, although apparently it's a couple hundred years old. It has value both as commentary linking the gospel accounts and as an apologetic argument for their reliability. (my post about it)

Additional reads of value: One Gospel for All Nations by Jackson Wu; The Message of Acts by Stott; Honor, Patronage, Kinship, and Purity by David deSilva (related post)

Fiction

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay - This novel exploring the French participation in the Holocaust during World War II was deeply moving. The book's impact on Bethany as she read it was what got it onto my list to read; it was worth it. It is a well-crafted story full of pathos.

A Man of Means by P. G. Wodehouse (or... My Man Jeeves, The Inimitable Jeeves, Uneasy Money) - A friend has been telling me for years of the beauty to be found in reading Wodehouse. This year, I finally started exploring. He was right, of course. You should try them too; all the ones above are in the public domain (aka free). Clever British humor...

Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan - In a reverse from Sarah's Key, Echo was such a good book that I got Bethany to read it.  This is a novel for young people, but it is also a compelling tale for the rest of us. More accurately, it is several tales woven together with a delicate touch.

Princess of Wind & Wave (and others) by Melanie Cellier - The re-imagining of the ancient fairy tales is very nicely done in this series; the old tales guide core details of the plot, but they do not govern harshly. One is always left to wonder how the new tale will end and how the critical nuances of each tale will be intertwined in the book. (Bethany says Cellier's Spoken Mage series may be even better.)

Others: The Good Earth by Peal S. Buck; Call for the Dead by John de la Carré (who passed away very recently); and The Chosen by Chaim Potok (related post)

Re-reads: the Wrinkle in Time series; the Dune series by Frank Herbert (related post)

Nonfiction

Third Culture Kids by Van Reken and Pollock - This book is not the sort that you necessarily read through. I've benefitted from it since I first picked it up in Albania in 2005 and realized that "I was a TCK": I was a normal person from an unusual culture. Now, I'm looking at it more from the perspective of a parent. How does one raise children between cultures in the best possible ways?

   BONUS FICTION: Three Names of Me by Mary Cummings is a book about a little girl raised between cultures and struggling with her identity. It's a beautiful book for kids. (The main character is not technically a TCK, but her questions are similar, so I include her story here.)

Lions of the West by Robert Morgan - This biographical history followed a series of lives to explain the expansion of a small group of British colonies to cover the breadth of the American continent. Morgan shows the tragedies (personal and societal), the visions (also, personal and societal), the courage, the pettiness, and the conniving that went into a century of expansion and conquest, growth and heartbreak. The book is aptly subtitled "Heroes and Villains."

Religion and the Growing Mind by Basil Yeaxlee (one post among several from earlier this year) 

Music from the Year

Psallos' "Hebrews" album - These meditations on the book of Hebrews captured the family's collective musical ear. There's a variety of styles to fit the variety of topics in Hebrews.

Andrew Peterson's "Resurrection Letters" albums were also prominent in our listening this year. Volume 1 is my favorite, but all of them are impacting.

Finally, "The Hound + The Fox" are a musical team whom we have often enjoyed listening to. Check them out; I'd start here with "What Child is This / Child of the Poor." (Then save it for next Christmas!)

Recommendations from years past: 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011

Hidden in Plain View - a lapsed argument on the New Testament's reliability

I suggest that we have such ample evidence for the reliability of these documents that we should consider ourselves privileged rather than burdened when called upon to present it. We should welcome the opportunity to reclaim and maintain the forward position held by the older apologists, for their arguments have been not so much refuted as forgotten in the shifts of theological fashion. (McGrew, 192)

 Drawing heavily on Paley's "Evidences of Christianity" and Blunt's "Scriptural Coincidences" (both free online due to their age), in Hidden in Plain View, Lydia McGrew presented a fresh and compelling argument on the historical reliability and accuracy on Scripture. Apparently this argument of (humanly) "undesigned coincidences" within Scripture  traces back to the 18th and 19th centuries, but it mostly disappeared. Now, due to a cousin's recommendation and the fact that it was available on Kindle Unlimited, I have gotten to read and benefit from this really useful book and argument. Hidden in Plain View was helpful in four areas:

1.  Reliability of Scripture (apologetics)

2.  Dealing with Bible difficulties (apologetics and hermeneutics)

3.  The 'Synoptic problem' in the Gospels (apologetics and hermeneutics)

4.  Insight into New Testament Scripture (hermeneutics)

  For the frequent reader or long-term student of the New Testament, the material in this book will probably be both extremely familiar and regularly surprising. This is particularly true of the first half, which deals with the Gospels. The reason for this is that as we have imbibed the different portions of the Scripture, we have often synthesized them in our understanding. This is obviously a good thing! However, it comes with the downside of not necessarily distinguishing the sources of the pieces of knowledge from each other. Therefore, we may not be  fully aware of many of the cases of Scripture supporting Scripture in the nitty gritty details.

  Again, this unawareness of specific links between is especially true in the four Gospel accounts, where the genres and narratives are so often read in parallel. On the other hand, I found that I was more aware of the subtle links between the accounts in Acts and the Pauline letters. I suspect that this is because each of these is more likely to be studied independently. Conversely, the Gospels, particularly the Synoptics (Matthew, Mark, Luke), are frequently studied as a whole. 

 It is in this connection that McGrew sheds light on the so-called 'synoptic problem', which she names 'the synoptic puzzle.' In fascinating details, she shows the independence of the four Gospel witnesses from each other. Most interestingly, as she points out, the details of independence often emerge at exactly the places where the accounts seem most harmonized (dependent?) at a surface level. This perspective also gives a clear response to the common question, 'Why are there four gospels (not just one)? (The apparently similar question of the later, Gnostic gospels such as the Gospel of Barnabas or the Gospel of Thomas, is quite separate actually.)

The providential provision of four Gospels gives us a three-dimensional view of the events. (p. 193)

 It was also in the Gospel sections, that I felt like there were the most significant insights into passages allowing deeper understanding of the meaning of each passage. For example, the links between John 13 where Jesus washes his followers' feet and Luke 22 where he describes servant leadership and declares, "I am among you as one who serves" are particularly poignant. The strength of this connection will certainly inform my thinking going forward.

  Anyways, this book is definitely worth reading, if not in all the details, at least to get the main argument. It is approachable in tone and, because she usually quotes the passages she is dealing with in their entirety, the argument has greater force as you see the coincidences in the details of the texts. 

  A few additional quotes to stir your interest (bold emphasis mine, italics original): 

But it is particularly noticeable that the Gospel authors often seem to write with the lack of affectation that we find in a person whose primary purpose is getting important information out there, getting down what happened, making it available, rather than in one whose primary purpose is to fit together what he writes in a polished manner. The author of the Gospel of John is certainly theological, perhaps more so than any of the other Gospel writers. But again and again we find him including items in his Gospel without their full explanations, apparently just because he wanted his readers to know that they happened. (p. 44)

What one sees in undesigned coincidences, again and again, are points which “impressed themselves upon the eye” of the spectator and came thus into the accounts we now have. (p. 63)

It’s also worth noting that any intentional connection of this miracle with the earlier miracle could, if both occurred, be attributed to Jesus himself. [...] It’s important not to assume that, if there are resemblances between two events in the Gospels, this automatically implies a literary parallel created by the author. (p. 207) 

~ McGrew, Lydia. Hidden In Plain View: Undesigned Coincidences in the Gospels and Acts