Cornerstone Hangover

We decided to skip out on the final evening of C-stone and pack up and head for home. As I type this entry on my Blackberry, we're stuck in traffic on I-80 with the Chicago skyline in the distance. Evidently there is an accident up in the distance somewhere.

It's interesting how after seeing a bunch of bands, some move up your ranking and others go down. Last night Switchfoot definitely went up. It was a great show (all live music instead of lots of pre-recorded tracks like the trend seemed to be) and they seemed very humble - again contrary to the trend.

I'm afraid, though, that one of my all-time favs, The Lost Dogs, dropped a bit. Perhaps it was because it was a midnight show, and we were dead tired after several days, but their show seems to be devolving into a burlesque show with a little music tossed in occassionally.

Tonight was a bunch of screamers on the mainstage, so we decided to shake the dust off our shoes (literally) and get home a day early to nurse the inevitable hangover caused by such an event.

At the rate the traffic is moving, though, it may be another night sleeping in a non-horizontal position.

Cornerstone field update

There was a steady rain yesterday until afternoon. I was 0 for 3 in seminars, as they all missed flights. Relient K was also a no-show as their bus burned down at 3am on the PA turnpike on their way from that other festival out there.

I caught the old-school Violet Burning during supper. Rockers Skillet, Anberlin and Jonezetta on the mainstage. Then late night was my wife's fav: Over The Rhine, and one my new faves (on account of the fact that their lead guitar player's father-in-law is going to be a Bethel prof this fall!):  Copeland.

Early this morning was the 5k. My wife came home with the major bling, as she won her age group. I was third in mine.  Major hills, not much sleep, but good times were had by all.

Cornerstone

Day 1 at Cornerstone is in the books. We made 300 mile trip without incident, but our preferred campsite was occupied when we got here. We sacrificed level ground for shade. When we got up this morning, everyone was in one corner of the tent.

We thought it might storm last evening, but the worst of it missed us. A gust of wind blew down our screened gazebo right on top of me. It is drizzling this morning.

We saw a very cool concert by The Crossing - the Celtic band from JPUSA. Then David Crowder Band was on the mainstage and gave essentially the same show as last year, but still inspiring. Then Trevor and skipped out on Toby Mac to go see Glenn Kaiser. The old guy can still play the blues.

The real reason everyone comes to cornerstone begins today:  the seminars.

Cornerstone Bound

I'm interrupting the Monday and Tuesday regular features (although Sunday's post probably should count as the Monday, ease-into-the-week posting). I'm technically on vacation for two weeks, and my normal schedule is thrown off.

Tomorrow, the family leaves for Cornerstone Music Festival -- the hippest, edgiest, counter-culture-est of the Christian music festivals. If I'm remembering correctly, this will be my ninth Cornerstone ('88, '89, '90, '00, '02, '03, '04, '06, '07). Of the 20,000 or so people in attendance, there aren't a lot that fit my demographic. And I suppose that is part of the attraction: it is different; it is a cross-cultural experience.

This will be the sixth C-stone for our kids. And given that the youngest is only 9 years old, it has been an experience for them that seems like a normal part of life (I hope we don't have too many counselling bills later on for that!). Some of the highlights that come to mind:

• Playing frisbee as the sun was setting at the old Cornerstone Fair Grounds in '88 while Margret Becker wailed songs from the Never for Nothing album.
• Watching One Bad Pig in '89 in one of those metal buildings (my introduction to the punk scene).
• Larry Norman's come-back concert in '90 (along with cameos with Geoff Moore and the Distance on "Why Should the Devil Have All the Good Music" and with DeGarmo and Key on "They Said He Was an Outlaw.")
• Dancing in the shoe-sucking mud to the W's in 2000 at the mainstage.
• The packed-out tent in 2002 for the first Lost Dogs show after Gene Eugene's death
• 2003 20th reunion concert at mainstage at which all the classic Cornerstone acts were paraded through for a song or two--and the full concert by Steve Taylor coming out of retirement.
• The Alarm late night in 2004.
• P.O.D. and David Crowder Band -- unlikely bedfellows, but my two fav's last year.

Some lowlights:

• The heat
• The dust
• The mud
• Going to see Pirates of the Caribbean 2 during a raining afternoon
• Losing the 3-on-3 basketball tournament in 2000 after making it to the finals of the winners bracket
• Everyone getting sick on the ride home in 2000
• Seeing my favorite bands get old

Hopefully we'll add to the good column this year!

I may try some blog posts via email, live from the festival. We'll see if they've gotten reliable cell service out in the cornfields yet.

IPOD Shuffle

I'm sitting out on the deck on a Sunday morning, having done Saturday night church last night because of a family reunion later today (I think I could really get into the Saturday church thing--Sunday feels so much more like a day of rest... perhaps a later post on this). Anyway, I'm cruising through some blog posts, and see this thing going around where you're asked to put your Ipod on shuffle and write down the first fifteen songs that come up. I suppose this tells something about you. I was "tagged" do so from the blog of Tom Carpenter (aka, the Tom).

A couple of qualifications before my list. 1. I don't own an Ipod. A year and a half ago for our 15th wedding anniversary, my wife and I decided to go out together and collaborate on getting gifts for each other. She got a piece of jewelry; I got a Philips Go Gear MP3, because it held way more than an Ipod for the same money (though I feel now like my neighbor back in the 80s who got a Beta machine rather than a VHS). 2. I'm not sure how representative my list from this device will be; I don't have all my music on there, and I'm a little nervous what it might reveal about me... I'm fighting all sorts of urges to "manufacture" a random list--but that sort of thing belongs on RCP's blog. So, once I figure out how to do the shuffle, here's the list:

1. "Wikki Tikki" Lost Dogs, Island Dreams
2. "Be My Escape" Relient K, Mmhmm
3. "The Winds" At the Foot of the Cross Vol. II, The Seven Last Words of Christ
4. "Bhagavad Gita" Prof. J. Rufus Fears, Books That Have Made History
5. "How Deep the Father's Love" Bethel Chapel Band, More Than Enough
6. "Sleeping In" The Postal Service, Give Up
7. "Roots in Stereo" P.O.D., Testify (see photo below)
8. "Kissers and Killers" The Choir, Speckled Bird
9. "Play it Loud" MxPx, Before Everything & After
10. "Moondance" Nightnoise, The Whitehorse Sessions
11. "Skin is Burning" Burlap to Cashmere, Anybody Out There?
12. "Where Travelers Meet" Phil Keaggy, The Wind and the Wheat
13. "Allegro Assai" City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, Beethoven Symphony No. 9
14. "Casino" Acoustic Alchemy, Arcanum
15. "Chitarra Romana" The Three Tenors, The Best of the Three Tenors

OK, I feel a little better. There are actually a bunch of lectures on my player that I listen to when I run and travel (things from the Teaching Company, and other places). I was nervous that I was going to be shown for the geek that I am. As it is, I got a nice random mix of the kinds of tunes that warm me up for Cornerstone this week. (I hear the 3 tenors might be a surprise act to appear!). In this vein, the MP3 is still running while I type this, and #16 is "Firefly" by Over the Rhine on Drunkard's Prayer.

That's my list, that's my life.

Final Flesh

I think I've decided that the blog is not the venue for expository philosophizing. I think the journal article and the monograph evolved because of the need for sustained argumentation.

My last few fleshly posts have been like rocks skipping across the surface of an ocean of metaphysics underneath (still trying to decide on the aptness of that metaphor...), and I can see the eyes rolling back into their heads.

So, let me wrap this up with another of the marquee passages of scripture relevant to spiritual formation and our bodies. Paul writes in 1 Cor 9:

Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one wins the prize? Run in such a way as to win the prize. Everyone who competes in the games goes into strict training. They do it to gain a crown that will not last. We do it to gain a crown that will last forever...

What is the "it"? Strict training. Strict train is what those who have intended to grow spiritually enter into. He continues:

Therefore I do not run like a man running aimlessly. I do not fight
like a man beating the air. No. I beat my body and make it my
slave.

I think the last sentence should be read as follows: instead of being a slave to my body and its desires, I make it my slave. That way it can work in service to me. I train it to do the things that I want to do.

The Flesh Again, With Fasting as an Example

OK, so I'm fully aware that there is a bit of revisionist history going on here, but I'd like to claim that among the early ascetics, those who got it right were the ones who saw that the way to spiritual maturity was not to transcend (or mortify) their flesh, but to transform their flesh. And the transformation process is one of reprogramming.

Let's take fasting as an example. I used to think that fasting was some means of bribing God (like people who go on hunger strikes to protest various causes). I want God to do something really bad, so I'll quit eating to show him how serious I am. And I don't want to discount the "fast and pray" injunctions and the relation between the two.

But my understanding of the practice of fasting has been transformed by the model of flesh and spirit I've been propounding. On this model, fasting is like doing spiritual calisthenics. My flesh is programmed to want food three times (or more per day); I don't have to have food for about 30-40 days, but I've been habituated to it. By fasting, I am practicing to let my spirit/person/soul have sway over the desires of the flesh. It builds up the "spirit muscle" so that when other kinds of fleshly desires may rear their ugly heads, my spirit has had practice at saying 'no' to such things. I see it very much along the lines of junior high basketball players practicing dribbling around chairs and crossing-over their dribble. This develops in them a skill, or a natural predilection, that is immediately transferable to the game situation.

I have found in my own life that when I am fasting consistently, I seem to have more spiritual power. I am "in shape" in spiritual life. When I don't fast, I tend to get a bit flabby and lazy and out of shape.

Lying

One of my wife's and my favorite contemporary novelists is Alexander McCall Smith. Last night we were reading his Sunday Philosophy Club and came across these two paragraphs about lying:

"Of course, not all lies were wrong, which was another respect, Isabel thought, in which Kant was mistaken. One of the most ridiculous things that he had ever said was that there was a duty to tell the truth to the murderer looking for his victim. If the murderer came to one's door and asked, Is he in? one would be obliged to answer truthfully, even if this would lead to the death of an innocent person. Such nonsense; and she could remember the precise offending passage: 'Truthfulness in statement which cannot be avoided is the formal duty of an individual to everyone, however great may be the disadvantage accruing to himself or to another.'...

The answer, surely, is that lying in general is wrong, but that some lies, carefully identified as the exception, will be permissible. There were, therefore, good lies and bad lies, with good lies being uttered for a benevolent reason (to protect the feeling of another, for example). If somebody asked one's opinion of a newly acquired--but tasteless--possession, for instance, and one gave an honest answer, then that could hurt feelings and deprive the other of the joy of ownership. So one lied, and praised it, which was surely the right thing to do. Or was it? Perhaps it was not as simple as that. If one became accustomed to lying in such circumstances, the line between truth and falsehood could become blurred."

Tomorrow I'll try to get back to the morass I've gotten into regarding the flesh and spiritual formation (the folks on Facebook, where this blog automatically posts, are jumping all over me!).

Tuesday's Blog about Blogging

In the analysis of my blog traffic by statcounter, it tracks the last 500 page loads. Of these, about half have gone directly to this page. Then, there are the links out there from which people find this blog. Of these, my Facebook Profile page narrowly leads the way over the links on the blog of the very hip Derry Prenkert . Holding a solid third (not that it's a competition) is the blog of one of the very few successful youth ministers who became successful deans: Terry Linhart .

Then there are a couple of other bloggers out there giving the occasional electronic shout out to Stump Speeches: Bob Carder is an old district board buddy now involved in church planting out in the plains somewhere. Find his blog here. And Nate Loucks--my star epistemology student--directs a few folks here from his xanga site.

Today I'm trying to return some love. I can't help wondering if the first people who wrote books on dinosaur skins or chiseled them on rocks passed them around to each other and said, "I'll read yours if you'll read mine."

The web is a wild, wonderful place.

Monday after Father's Day

We had a lovely Father's Day yesterday. Came home from church and put some steaks on the grill. My family got me a nice sound system for the computer (with subwoofer!). That has me sampling all the music on the computer.

Sampling all the music has me deciding to make it a Monday tradition of easing into the week with something light-hearted (two weeks in a row makes it a tradition!). Traditions need some explaining:

I have a sister who lives in Sao Paulo, Brasil. We were able to go visit her and her family at Christmas time last year. During the 8 or 9 days we were there, we calculated that we spent 30 hours in the car trying to get around the city and to the beaches. During those 30 hours of very close quarters, something had to occupy the kids, so we listened (over and over) to what we called the "Brasil Silly Songs".

Here's another offering from the Brasil Silly Songs Greatest Hits: Cheech the School Bus Driver. (This is high class stuff.)

Flesh is neutral

The last post could leave the impression that the flesh is bad. On the interpretation I'm trying to articulate, flesh in itself is not bad. Christ became "flesh" -- the same Greek word the NIV translates as "sinful nature" most of the time in Paul's letters.

What I'm claiming is that flesh itself is neutral. Flesh can be trained or "programmed" to be a positive or a negative in our lives, because it is so capable of sustaining habits (see earlier post on this). The issue is that given the tendency to sin that we've inherited and given the fact that we exist in a very fallen culture which encourages the development of certain habits, the "flesh" for most of us is something we have to overcome when we become Christians.

The point of the spiritual disciplines, then, is to retrain the flesh to sustain positive habits. This is what Jesus did (WWJD). His flesh was a boon to his spiritual life, rather than a bane.

More to come...

(this bonus post for the day is brought to you by the fact that Red Sox are on TV again and I'm sitting here with the laptop!)

Spirit and flesh redux

OK, let's try this again. Galatians 5:16f in the NRSV (not the NIV, because it translates sarx as "sinful nature" rather than "flesh"):

Live by the spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the spirit, and what the spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other to prevent you from doing what you want.

Does this speak to anyone's experience other than mine? Or we might go to Romans 7:

I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... But in fact it is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells within me, that is, in my flesh. I can will what is right but I cannot do it.

Here again we're talking about two different agendas at play. "I" (my spirit/soul that has been regenerated) want to do what's right, but this flesh that is also "me" seems to want other stuff that conflicts. Paul goes so far as to say that it is not "I" that do the bad stuff, but the sin dwelling in my flesh.

This is tough stuff to explain unless we have recourse to the actual, physical flesh that has become habituated in certain ways. Remembering that our brains are part of that, and that the neural pathways that have been formed govern (they don't dictate completely except in extreme situations) my thoughts, attitudes, emotions, etc. Here, then, is why spiritual formation must pay attention to our fleshly existence.

Spirit, flesh, and Mona Lisa

"The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak." So said Jesus about the disciples when they couldn't stay awake. There is a consistent ontology of flesh and spirit in Scripture. Some argue about this, but I see it pretty plainly. And I think the best argument for it is that such an ontology best explains the data of spiritual formation.

If this were a philosophy paper, I'd have to get a lot more sophisticated, but I don't think we lose too much by claiming that human beings are spirit and flesh. These are not two different parts that make up one whole (the way it takes hydrogen and oxygen atoms to make water molecules). Rather, there is an essential substance (the spirit/soul/person) and a mode of its existence (human flesh).
By way of analogy (and it's only an analogy), consider the Mona Lisa. The picture to the left is the "Mona Lisa" in the medium of crayon. This is possible, because there is something that IS the Mona Lisa, and that thing can be represented in different media.

So, we might say that the thing that is me (my spirit/soul/person) is currently "represented" in human flesh. It seems possible, then, that it could be represented in something else, like a spiritual body (the soma pneumatica of 1Cor. 15).

OK, lots of objections come to mind here (Could I be "represented" in beetle flesh? No. You couldn't. Perhaps I'll get to that in another post. Am I not essentially human? Hmmm... Let's just let that sit for a bit.) The point I want to draw out is that even when I'm "born again", my spirit may be reborn, and I genuinely desire and will to do the right things, but I'm still enfleshed. And we know what flesh means: habits. God doesn't seem to take away the habits of the flesh for most of us at conversion. The good news is, we don't have to be slaves to the flesh any more, and with the assistance of the Holy Spirit we can retrain our flesh.

Whoa... too much to digest. We'll let this sit and try again tomorrow. There's really some very important stuff for spiritual formation in all this.

Wishing, Desiring, Intending

I wish I had a million dollars; I wish I were snorkeling in the Caribbean; I wish the Sunnis and Shiites would quit blowing each other up. That is, I can form a positive mental image of the object of my wish. When I conceive of it happening, I have good feelings about it.

I desire to learn to speak Spanish. I desire to run a sub-20 minute 5k. I desire to organize my office. That is, beyond forming a positive mental image about these things, every once in a while I engage in a flurry of activity that has something to do with achieving these goals. I consistently want to do them, and have resolved (several times, in fact) to make these things happen, but none of them are currently achieved (nor, if I'm being brutally honest, do I expect them to happen any time soon).

I intend to write a book. I intend to go camping at Cornerstone again this year. I intend to pay off the van loan by the end of the summer. That is, beyond wishing for these things, and beyond desiring them and resolving to accomplish them, I am currently engaged in practices which have reliably shown to lead to the intended goal. I am committed to seeing them happen and have prioritized accordingly.

Wishing, desiring, intending... If we asked Christians where on that scale would the goal of "Becoming more like Christ" fall, I fear that for most of us it is somewhere between wishing and desiring.

Equally we might ask about "Becoming spiritually mature" or (to use Willard's blunt example) "stopping sinning", or to link an earlier post, "learning to obey all that Jesus has commanded". What does this tell us about the depth of Christianity as practiced in 21st century America?

Tuesday's Blog on Blogging

Here continues my public reflections on the process of reflecting publicly. I'm settling into the rhythm of posting almost every day. I feel like the Israelites going out onto the desert sand every morning to find some manna. The thrill of seeing it the first few mornings probably wore off after a while. Then it became work.

Some must have been thinking, "God, if you're going to miraculously make manna appear, why can't you just make it appear in our cupboards?" It would be any harder for him, would it? And it would save us a lot of work! Evidently that's not God's style.

Blogging, then, becomes the metaphor for manna collection, which is the graphic reality of God's decision to work with us--not to work for us. And then again, the benefit of blogging is primarily for the blogger--not for the bloggee.

It's easy to read other people's interesting thoughts, good ideas, profound insights; but that rarely does much for you. Having to work through it yourself, putting your own hiney on the line--there's where the benefit lies (or is it lays... pretty sure it's lies).

Of course there's the continuing irony that if there weren't a few people out there actually reading the stuff, then it wouldn't really be blogging... it would just be keeping a diary. Thanks to the readers who keep us honest.

Monday, Monday

Today is Monday. It takes a while into the week for me to have anything to say. Here is a song instead.

Monday, Monday

See if you can make it all the way through.

Postmodernism

I am a member of the Evangelical Philosophical Society (their website--which has not been updated in over a year, can be found here). Each year our annual conference is held in conjunction with the big Evangelical Theological Society conference. This year's conference should be exciting because of the resignation of ETS President, Frank Beckwith (also an EPS member), due to his joining the Catholic Church. My blog entry about this here.

As an extension of the ministry of EPS, William Lane Craig (Wikipedia article here) organizes an apologetics training conference each year around the time of the annual shindig. This year we're in San Diego, and I'll be speaking at the apologetics conference on the topic of postmodernism. It is something that I taught a class on a few years ago (and did some seminars). But I fear that with the pace of change these days, I'm already out of the loop. I would appreciate any books or resources any of you out there could point me too that would get me up to speed.

What's the BUZZ on postmodernism?



Thanks in advance.

Spiritual Formation Recap

Here are the claims made so far in my spiritual formation series:

1. There is a gap between what we are called to be and what we too often are. Here


2. There is a role for us to play in the process of spiritual maturation. Here


3. The contemporary church has largely omitted the command in the Great Commission to teach people how to obey all the commands of Jesus. Here and Here


4. We can’t expect to do what Jesus did unless we train like Jesus did. Here


5. A discipline is any activity we can force our selves to do which indirectly brings about a change in us that we couldn’t bring about directly. Here


6. At the basis of character are habits. Here

Stay tuned for future posts as the case continues to be built.

Church and Democracy

I think it was Winston Churchill who said, "Democracy is the worst form of government--except for all the others." Does the same apply to church government?

I've read Plato's Republic enough to be persuaded that democracy is not all that it's cracked up to be. It is certainly a leveler in terms of guarding against big swings (and so long as theocracy remains elusive, I don't think I'd want any other form of government for the state). But is subjecting difficult decisions to a popular vote the wisest? I think it was Descartes who said, "When you're dealing with difficult questions, you'd expect most people to get the answer wrong."

So what does this have to do with church polity? I'm drawn to the Catholic Church in many ways, but I think they've got the doctrine of the Church substantially incorrect. I'm not infallible, and so could be wrong on this, but the Kingdom of God is not to be equated with the institution of the Church. That leaves the elder system vs. the congregational system.

So for me the central tension is my malaise with democracy vs. the priesthood of all believers. It seems to me that it is better for a group of elders to be charged with the governance of the local body--people who are good and gifted at that sort of thing. You want people making the decisions who are most qualified. But then that seems to encourage (I don't see that it has to lead to, but seems to do so pretty reliably) a class of rulers and a class of consumers. And because I believe so strongly in the priesthood of all believers--even though they have different gifts--I'm pulled toward a congregational model.

No resolution here. Just thoughts. I think it was Daffy Duck who said, "That's all folks."

Church Organization

I taught Sunday School this past week at NMC. The topic assigned to me was the nature of the Church. I wasn't sure that I had much to say about this, and gave the disclaimer beforehand saying so. And then I went on to make two claims--which may or not be true (again, I don't know that much about this stuff). The two claims (which are really just two parts to one claim) are the following:

The two events most significant in the early centuries of the Church for leading to the Church as institution were these:

1. The delay of the Parousia. That's the fancy word theologians use to mean the 2nd coming of Christ. It sure seems to me that the earliest Christians believed this was going to happen in pretty short order. Then by the time all those who had been with Jesus had died, and then all those who had been with those who had been with Jesus had died, it seemed that the Church would have to hunker down and bit and organize in order to survive. While there are a few comments about the organization of churches (that is, local bodies of believers) in Scripture, it doesn't look a whole lot like they do today (I mean, to whom is the chair of the refreshment committee supposed to report??).

2. Cyprian and the Novatian Controversy around 250 was a pretty big deal too. The church folks were trying to figure out what to do with the apostates who came crawling back to the Church (many of them now that the plague was staring them down). Long story short: Cyprian was very instrumental in making church membership the criterion for inclusion in the family of God. "No one can have God for his father who has not the Church for his mother." Now, it was not good enough to believe that Jesus was Lord. The Church had to let you in (and the Church could show you the door).

We talked then about different systems of polity that exist today: the RCC/Episcopal; the Presbyterian/elder; and the Congregational. It turned out to be a very lively and interesting Sunday School class.

Tomorrow I may hazard some further commentary on the polity situation.

Tuesday's Blog on Blogging

The following was submitted via handheld email device.

----- Original Message -----
From: Stump, James
To: Stump, James
Sent: Mon Jun 04 10:13:24 2007
Subject: Tuesday's Blog on Blogging

So I keep getting sucked further into this electronic universe. I now no longer trust the Feedburner Stats, but have this new counter on the side that keeps track of unique visits (I promise I'm not just doing them all myself). I also have a map that should start generating a list of where people are coming from. I saw this on another blog and thought it pretty cool. I've also gotten an account on Technorati that helps to manage all this stuff. I fear that I could spend hours doing this sort of thing. Just implant a chip in brain!

I guess I'm pretty results oriented. I've kept a journal for many years, writing about similar stuff that no one but myself ever read. I see a lot of value in doing that as a spiritual discipline. So I continue to feel that if I'm blogging in a forest and no one is there to hear the tree fall, I can easily go back to journaling off-line and that part of the merit of blogging won't change. But now there is increased accountability in doing it if there are people out there watching. And it is fun to see that someone actually posted a comment, or that someone in Switzerland visited the site (maybe it was just an automatic search engine... but it is still cool that it was from Switzerland!).

So whereas the internet's first stage was a move toward our entertainment becoming very private (no one sees what I'm doing or looking at), I think this is a pretty health development now in that there is a new openness and accountabilty that is fostered through blogging.

Faculty Bias Against Evangelicals

My blog description includes "Education". I've done much with that yet. Here is an interesting piece of recent news in that arena.

A study released last month by the Institute for Jewish and Community Research finds that 53% of faculty in American colleges and universities have an unfavorable opinion of evangelical students. This compares to just 3% of faculty holding the same attitude toward Jewish students. The study was commissioned in order to root out a supposed bias against Jewish students, and the authors were shocked to find reaction to evangelicals. The study had more than 1200 respondents, from all disciplines, all kinds of institutions, and all regions of the country (so it can't be explained away by geography).

The rest of the unfavorable (prejudiced) attitudes of faculty against religious groups was as follows:

• 3% Jews
• 4% Buddhists
• 9% Non-evangelical Christians
• 10% Not practicing any religion
• 13% Catholics
• 18% Atheists
• 22% Muslims
• 33% Mormons
• 53% Evangelical Christians

There is a lot more in the study and worth of several exploration. A pdf of the study can be found here.

Sunday Archives -- Harry Potter

My son has a gadget on his computer that is counting down the days until the next Harry Potter book is out (at the time of this writing: 47 days, 10 hours, 48 minutes).

Here is a piece I wrote for the Bethel Beacon published Nov. 29, 2001--soon after the first movie came out: Harry Potter Review

Enjoy.

Red Sox - Yankees

So I've been a pretty big Red Sox fan since the spring of 1996 when we moved to Boston so I could go to graduate school. I wasn't really a very big baseball fan at the time, but I walked past Fenway Park almost every day on my way to BU, and there's something that gets in your blood out there.

Then the next season was Nomar Garciaparra's Rookie of the Year season. When my parents were out visiting, we were walking around Faneuil Hall, we bumped into Nomar and his family. He let us get a picture with him (sorry, can't post it here, it was before digital cameras--but the blown up, framed copy is hanging on my wall). After that, our oldest son (who was 4 at the time) started imitating Nomar's batting glove ritual.

When we first moved back to Indiana, we got Directv with the baseball package just so we could see a few games a week (the withdrawals were pretty bad). Needless to say, 2004 was a good year for us, and I was pretty obnoxious about it.

The last couple of years, though, I've significantly reduced the amount of time I spend watching and tracking baseball. And now we not only don't have Directv and the baseball package, we don't even have cable any more. And the first two times that Boston was on Fox Saturday baseball, our local station showed the Cubs.

Today, then, is the first chance I've had to see a Red Sox game on TV. It's June. Red Sox are in first place. Yankees are in last (or close to it). They're playing each other on TV. I'm watching it. Pull out the Yankee Hater hat. Life is good.

Habits

Continuing with the spiritual formation posts: we're at the point now where one of the most important points must be made. At the basis of character lies habits. And if we are attempting to take on the character of Christ, we must take on his habits. Character is the long-term description of us--not individual actions, but over the long-haul how we tend to act.

We can learn much from the pagan, pre-Christian philosopher Aristotle in this regard. He claimed (almost paradoxically) that only a patient person can truly perform patient acts; but then that a person becomes patient by practicing acts of patience. In other words, much like I claimed last week about disciplines, you can force yourself to do some individual acts, and over a period of time those form in us certain skills or habits. The analogy again is easily seen in athletes or musicians training their muscles to work in certain ways.

OK, so just as I can train my fingers to switch between guitar chords smoothly and naturally, the claim here is that I can train my person, my soul, to do or react naturally in certain ways.

When Peter denied Christ, I'd like to claim that he wasn't exercising his free will. When they said to him, "You were with him," Peter didn't stop and consider his options and then decide what to say. Rather, he reacted: "No I wasn't!" Now this doesn't exculpate him; he is responsible for the way he reacts because his reactions are the result of habits that were allowed to form in his life. He had become the kind of person who would react that way in those circumstances.

The key, then, for being able to obey the commands of Jesus (like loving enemies, blessing those who curse us, etc.) is forming the right habits so that those things become the things we do naturally.

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