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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