The Oklahoma City Museum of Art is currently exhibiting 19th century narrative art from England and France. I spent my Saturday afternoon wandering from one painting to another, entertaining myself by trying to figure out the story being presented in the artwork. Some of the pieces drew upon standard classical and Biblical themes, while others chose their subjects from everyday life as well as from the lives of the famous. At a time when Impressionism and Post-Impressionism were stealing the spotlight in the visual arts, these artists recognized to the importance of, and aesthetic value in, lives of individuals.

Often times the paintings had a clear message or a moral to their story that was a strong indication of the painter’s particular views. Nevertheless, the interesting feature of this art is that it did not divorce itself from an attempt to portray things as they appear in order to present an ideal or theory about the world. The theory was right there among the people, be it a French peasant gathering the hay or a group of Greek youths gathered around Homer’s poetry.

The combination of the message, the opinion, or philosophy of the artist with the story illustrated on his canvas, struck me as deeply profound. If the world of ideas is only accessible through abstraction and meditation then it is inaccessible to the majority of mankind. However, if the important things of life are best related in a story, through the narration of the artist, then perhaps we have a chance of understanding something after all.

We are masses of individuals, each of which has a unique story. Narrative art recognizes that there are a multitude of stories to be told, and that they are worth telling. By focusing attention on this or that person, action, or moment in time, the individual is duly honored; it isn’t just the theory or idea that has value, but the individual person is seen as important as well. The story must use particular instances of particular people in order to come alive. Interestingly, however, the narration of the story of the individual provides a check to the tendency to glorify the individual. Through an event as normal as a reaper taking a break from his labor to drink a glass of water, the artist is able to paint a vivid scene that immediately draws the viewer into the story and then provides a medium through which the viewer can reflect upon more universal themes that are instanced in the particular story presented. The individual story becomes part of a larger message or moral that finds its root in the warp and woof of life, and then grows to become a tree large enough for all the birds of the field to nest in.

Abstraction can be a useful tool that enables one to separate out the kernel from the husk and disect the smallest details; however, the narrative artist uses the whole grain to point to the value and importance of the kernel inside, thus keeping intact those things that were, perhaps, never meant to be separated.

About 24 hours ago I stopped procrastinating and bought Switchfoot’s new CD Nothing is Sound and, man, did I make a good decision.

It is another offering of what we’ve come to expect and love about the San Diego pop/rock band: a mixture of clever, profound and often deeply moving lyrics coupled with catchy tunes and talent-ridden riffs on guitar.

I think Jonathan Foreman, the writer of most of the band’s songs, is something of a modern prophet. The majority of the tracks on the album cut deep into the heart of the problems of western culture. “Stars”, their hit single (and made into a super cool music video), sets the tone by stating, “Maybe I’ve been the problem / Maybe I’m the one to blame” and later “I’ve been thinking about everyone / everyone you look so lonely.” This gets right at the deep individualism that tears at the souls of our society. Halloween is a lame celebration, in my opinion, but at least neighbors connect somewhat. Think about how rare that is!

“Easier Than Love” sheds light on the abuse of sex in our culture. Sex has largely replaced relationship, as Foreman writes: “She (sex) is easier than love, easier than life. It’s easire to fake and smile and bribe / It’s easier to leave / It’s easier to lie / It’s harder to face ourselves at night, feeling alone / What we have done, the moster we have become / Where is my soul?” I wonder if he wrote this in response to shows like Friends and Seinfield. The humor and laughs of this show – and many of our lives – merely masks the emptiness and lack of relationship that characterizes our godless lives. When you’ve fallen for the lie that sex and looking nice is the end of life, it makes sense to leave when things get hard and lie to cover your back.

The mind-blowing success of their last album, Meant to Live, didn’t dilute their faithfulness to Christ in their latest offering.

The brilliance of Switchfoot is that they have discovered a way to preach a message, the message “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”, in a way that thousands are listening to. God bless them. If you ever get tired of the culture war, you will find encouragement in the work of Switchfoot.

We’ll miss Mr. Matthew Anderson as he takes off on a very much deserved vacation this weekend. The way Matt pulled off GodBlogCon is inspiring. I’m proud to call him one of my friends.

He had a great list of the top five books for college students. I will mimic his approach in picking five books that have deeply impacted me in my college experience, but which are still accessible. I too went through a great books program and here’s what I’d give as a list for those preparing for college: both for the spiritual challenges as well as the intellectual ones. And, free of charge, I’ll throw in a few music recommendations! Most college kids spend about as much time listening to music as reading, so I find this very relevant.

1) Dallas Willard’s Divine Conspiracy. It’s a bit of a tough read, but struggling through it cultivates virtue in itself! Dr. Willard not only provides a comprehensive vision of the Christian ethic, he more importantly gives a great example of how to read the Bible. People these days just can’t read the Bible. I’ll avoid ranting about this, but I heard a sermon given by a professor of Bible at a Christian college two weeks ago that grossly misinterpreted Jesus’ Beatitudes. If this kind of guy can’t read the Bible who can? Well, Willard provides a model worthy of study. The Christian life is so very beautiful and this analysis of the sermon on the mount uncovers it.

2) JP Moreland’s Love Your God with All Your Mind. This is a simple book written by one of the best Christian philosophers around. Moreland gives some basic apologetic arguments and reveals some problems in the contemporary evangelical church. It will light a fire in those who understand it to do battle in the world of ideas for Jesus.

3) Augustine’s Confessions. My wife and I took a group of high schoolers through it this summer, so I have to agree with Matt on this point. It would be quite difficult for one not used to hard reading, but it is a beautiful text. It’s not hard to identify with Augustine’s struggles if one has any degree of honesty about the state of his or her soul. Augustine’s brutal honesty and consideration of the goodness and mercy of God make it at once intensely convicting and hope-inspiring. I wrote my senior thesis arguing for unity on this book. One of my conclusions is that the Confessions are written in such a way that Augustine intends the first “easy” 9 books as a mere set up for the last four. I doubt a pre-college student could understand 10-13, but pushing through would be highly rewarding because all the good stuff is in there. The Bible is more wonderful than we realize, but Augustine got it.

4) Poetry. There has to be some poetry in here because there needs to be language that sticks with you. I think Four Quartets is not appropriate for young or pre-college types because it is not accessible, whatever the venerable Mr. Anderson might say. Beautiful and profound? Yes. Readable. No. Dante is too ephemeral and deep to be a first. Milton is probably more understandable for the typical evangelical pre-intellectual! So I’ll go with Milton’s Paradise Lost.

5) Doestoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment. This is very readable and gets after a number of the Great Ideas, including justice and love. It is deeply depressing and difficult at times, but this should serve to push the reader to introspect and seek for genuine relationship. It also reveals the sickness bred by secularism. Raskolnikov is easy to identify with for an idealistic, passionate person. Hopefully, seeing the depths of wretchedness his worldview throws him into will at once create revulsion at atheism/secularism and will aim one’s passions at the eternal ends of Truth, Goodness and Beauty.

BONUS FEATURE: Music recommendations.
1) Get yourself accustomed to classical music as quickly as possible! Once you love classical music you will never abandon Beauty and you will know ugliness for what it truly is. Learning to like it is quite difficult. I used to think it was for days when there was lots of noise and it would help me get to sleep. This is dead wrong. It has to be attended to. A musical background will move one forward by leaps and bounds, but the discipline to start loving that which is clearly beautiful is worth any amount of difficulty. Bach’s Brandenburg Concerto, Handel’s Water Music, and Mozart’s Piano Concertos are great places to start. The Water Music is my very favorite piece in the world at the moment! It conveys such a range of emotions and utilizes every type of instrument and each part fits into the whole so perfectly.

2) When you have to listen to rock you can’t go too wrong with U2 and Switchfoot. Both of them are committed to writing excellent music and they both offer clever, sometimes brilliant lyrics. U2’s All that You can’t Leave Behind is fantastic. Switchfoot’s Meant to Live will change your life if you let it.

I’m leaving for San Diego with my beautiful and patient wife. We’re going to go replace our candles so we can start burning them from both ends again. I’m not taking the laptop, so blogging for me will resume on Monday. I’m sure the other guys will throw down a thought or two this weekend.

Hugh Hewitt’s op-ed in the NY Times is available. With characteristic clarity, Hewitt outlines his thoughts on the ramifications of the Miers meltdown.

The core of Hewitt’s argument is that Miers should have received an up or down vote in the Senate, because “Voting for or against Ms. Miers would have forced Senate Democrats to articulate a coherent standard for future nominees. Now, the Democrats have free rein.”

The other money quote: “The Miers precedent cements an extraconstitutional new standard for nominees. Had the framers intended only judges for the court, they would have said so. No doubt some Miers critics will protest a willingness to support nominees who have never sat on the bench, but no president is going to send one forward after this debacle.”

While cries to move on and look ahead are certainly popular right now, it seems a certain amount of self-reflection is appropriate and healthy, especially now that we’re starting to be removed from the situation.

My question for the anti-Miers contingent who called for withdrawal is simple. If Miers is as bad a candidate as some pundits would have us think, then the only group that stands to lose by having her go through the confirmation process is the Bush White House, and they lost anyway. Would it have been that bad if the process had run its course and she had been overwhelmingly defeated? The replacement judge would have been delayed a few weeks, which is crucial given the upcoming abortion rights case before the court, but having a replacement in time for that is now in jeopardy anyway.

The anti-anti-Miers crowd took a ‘wait-and-see’ stance, which given the lack of substantial evidence either way, seems wholly appropriate and rational. What we needed was more substantial evidence that Miers was an awful candidate, the sort of evidence that hours of confirmation hearings would hopefully provide. If she goes to the hearings, then everyone has the possibility of being persuaded one way or the other by solid arguments, not hearsay and conjecture. If Miers submitted an awful performance (i.e. didn’t persuade us that she is an originalist), then the anti-anti-Miers people *might* plead for someone else, everyone would vote her down, and we would be in the position we are now, except that everyone would agree that she wasn’t the right choice.

My question for Hugh: if Miers had made it to the confirmation hearings and if there was inconclusive evidence that she is a solid conservative, would it merit voting her down, political consequences for Bush (and ‘08) be damned?*

Disclaimer: As poli-blogging is a new world to me, forgive me if I’m asking the wrong questions. It seems that if I’m going to get involved politically, that this SCOTUS nomination is the appropriate time to do it. What little blogging muscle I can flex, I will to help the cause of healing the split and confirming the next justice.

Update: Thanks for the link, Hugh, and more importantly, thanks for answering the question. Would a defeat on the Senate floor be as damaging as a withdrawal and a split party? It depends on the nature of the defeat, but if she’s bad enough to call for a withdrawal, then she probably would have been soundly voted down.

Also, welcome Hewitt readers. Do me a favor and visit friends Rezitech (for all your home and small business technology needs) and Ink Invitations (for world-class paper invitations–see her portfolio here).

I want to be an intelligent person. Many people I know want to be intelligent persons, and pursue this end with much energy, vigour, and enthusiasm…. my question is about the purpose of all this bustle. Namely: What is the point of being smart?

This is a question and challenge for all those who are interested in learning, in speaking or writing for a living, in teaching, or even in serving as “active men,” that is, pastors, or business or political leaders. All such folks devote portions of their day into increasing in knowledge, becoming more informed and useful in their chosen field… to put it simply, in “being smart.”

Is being intellectually capable a good in itself? Or is it a means to some other end, or some third thing? If you have no answer to these questions, perhaps having one is important.

“It is a good in itself,” you may say. If you have no reason to doubt this, and see no need for extensive justification, consider this:

Let’s suppose the truism is true, and “knowledge is power.” The smarter you become, the more powerful you become. And the most powerful, capable, efficient people are the most dangerous, the biggest risk of causing harm. Like a scalpel: it is useful only because it is so dangerous. If it were not sharp, it could not wound nor could it heal.

Have you considered that knowledge, then, might be one of those things that is only good if employed at the right time in the right way? Employed the wrong way, perhaps it is the means to greater damnation.

Do you want to be a person with knowledge, without the knowledge of where to put it?

Perhaps second-order knowledge, knowing what to do with knowledge, is more important than knowledge itself? If not more important, at least primary.

It is a great thing to know how to build a skyscraper. It is a greater thing to know when to build a skyscraper and why.

If you are someone who invests in your intellect, take a moment, alone, or with a close friend, to ask yourself if you are totally comfortable with your present understanding of what to do with “smarts” once you get them.

(And, of course, post your reflections, that we might all get smarter together!)

Update: Rhett weighs in! Surprise choice: My Name is Asher Lev. I haven’t read it, but that’s a strong recommendation…

I’m a bit behind these days, but feeling a bit vindicated. The bloggers over at OneTrueGodBlog are a bit slow these days as well. Only yesterday did Hugh’s interesting question from ten days ago elicit a response from his chosen panel. Since they’re taking a long time, I thought I would engage in that particularly annoying practice of answering a question not directed to me.

Hugh’s question:

Please recommend the five books you would have a Christian college student read who was interested in deepening his or her faith but who also had all the time constraints and background education of most college kids today. (In other words, no Summa Theologica or Institutes.)

Professor David Allen White responded by going after those college students who still love books–Plato’s Phaedo, Dante’s Divine Comedy, and Shakespeare’s Lear all make the list. While a huge fan of these particular works, my own approach is slightly different. When thinking about Hugh’s question, I realized that two things have built up my faith: arguments and experiences. Yet in my low moments, it wasn’t the arguments I returned to but the experiences I had and the mentors I had talked with. This may have been because I went to a Christian college, but it seems that even in a Christian environment many students lack a robust understanding and experience of the life of the Kingdom. You might say the books below were my guideposts on the road into the Kingdom, since the doorway to the Kingdom is limited to the Word of God alone. It was these books that formed my devotional life and these authors who served as surrogate mentors, especially number five.

1) Abide in Christ. Few devotional writers are as able to motivate and inspire as Andrew Murray. A 19th century pastor, Murray possessed an amazing ability to foster a desire for the deeper Christian life. The single best devotional work I have ever read, Abide in Christ will move you to rest in the work of Christ and to make your home in His sufficiency and power. Murray, in this respect, is the antidote to the meritocratic, achievement oriented thinking of most college students.

2) The Great Divorce. I suggest The Great Divorce over Mere Christianity because The Great Divorce, by virtue of its genre, has the potential to instill a gravitas about our normal, everyday affairs. When confronted with the fact that small decisions over a long period of time form my character, I am left crying with Lewis, “The morning! The morning! I am caught by the morng, and I am a ghost!” If you don’t understand, well, then you should read it.

3) Four Quartets. What most students need in a text is something that will force them to pause and reflect about their lives. I have found no piece of poetry as effective at accomplishing this as Eliot’s Four Quartets. Relatively accessible, Four Quartets is captivatingly beautiful and hauntingly relevant. “Do not let me hear of the wisdom of old men, but rather of their folly, Their fear of fear and frenzy, their fear of possession, of belonging to another, or to others, or to God. The only wisdom we can hope to acquire Is the wisdom of humility: humility is endless.”

4) Confessions. When you read them, be sure to read the Chadwick translation. Intimate, revealing, and often difficult, Augustine’s Confessions forms the basis of years of Christian reflection about the nature of the soul, sin, and grace. Augustine’s masterpiece (yes, I think it is better than City of God), Confessions is an invitation to learn how to lead a reflective, thoughtful life. Though the end is difficult, it’s worth reading and meditating upon. “Our hearts are restless until they rest in Thee…”

5) Orthodoxy. I saved what I think is the single most important text for last. One of the two books for which this blog is named (the other being the aforementioned Mere Christianity), G.K. Chesterton’s book is witty, insightful, and uplifting. Though not specifically a work of apologetics, Chesterton meets objection after objection head-on, and in doing so presents a vision of Christianity that is vibrant and lively. An eminently reasonable man, Chesterton understood the overwhelming power of joy and realized (along with Lewis and Charles Williams, specifically) that the rejection of Christianity is fundamentally a retreat from joy into cynicism and skepticism about the universe. The only pitfall to reading Orthodoxy is that you won’t actually understand it the first time–Chesterton turns a phrase better than anyone, and I can almost guarantee you’ll lose the argument for the phrases, which is just as well. The phrases changed my life by rescuing me from the darkness and cynicism and drawing me into the deep and abundant life of joy.

Honorable Mention: A Severe Mercy. A disciple of Lewis, Sheldon VanAuken was an adult convert to Christianity who lost his wife Davy to cancer not long after converting. Van Auken, like his mentor, has a way with words, and is able to capture the essence of his relationship with Davy. Part love story, part conversion story, part Problem of Pain, Severe Mercy models a reflective, intelligent Christian life.

Honorable Mention 2: Spirit of the Disciplines. It was this book that tipped me off to the importance of the physical body in Paul’s theology. That chapter was so formative in my thought that I have never looked back. Willard provides excellent exegesis of Paul combined with solid, practical exhortation and advice about the classical spiritual disciplines. A must-read for anyone interested in the deeper Christian life.

Update:

Other answers at Ordinary Everyday Christian, One Clear Call, Challies, and Mere-O friend John Schroeder at Blogotional. I now think that I saw John’s post earlier and got the phrase “Answer a question I haven’t been asked” stuck in my head without remembering where it was from. My apologies.

My question: where’s Rhett’s list?

What does a philosophy major do with his degree?

Well, finance is far superior to flipping burgers, so I think the profession I’m in for the time being is pretty respectable. What it certainly has done is force me to think (I’ll hopefully never get away from that part) about what I’m doing and why I’m doing it.

I will begin with the latter thought: what relation do the active life and contemplative life have to one another?

I am very attracted to the world of ideas and books and discussions. One life that sounds wonderful to me is spending my days in some large library reading a book that I would talk over with my friends that afternoon before going home to my lovely wife in the evening and to play with my kids (that are not yet in existence). I would spend time teaching, helping others get into the Great Conversation and discipling them in their walks with Christ. That is the ideal world for me and I’ll definitely get to something like that at some point.

In the meantime, however, the doors in my life opened up a new horizon. I have a great job as a financial advisor Key components to success are creativity and people skills. So, mostly ungrudgingly, I’ve become a money-making-man.

While in college one of my thoughts about this life is that it makes it impossible to allow one’s thoughts rise to contemplation of eternal wisdom.

I have found this statement to be mostly false.

If you look at any given professor in the university, you will mostly find men and women as busy and caught up with their work and careers as you will in the outside world. My suspicion is that a life of contemplation can be cultivated by anyone. Granted, an 80-90 hour a week job leaves little time for thoughtful reflection. However, working 30-60 hours a week leaves plenty of time for contemplation if one is disciplined and makes it a habit. I’m personally enjoying studying Jonathan Edwards’ Religious Affections with one of my friends at the moment along with reading Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein for pleasure. This kind of reading is also not the only way to live a life endowed with study: for the Christian, prayer is a requirement. Having regular times for prayer and praying throughout the day a la Brother Lawrence are ways of contemplating eternal Truth in a personal way even more beautiful than Plato imagined.

So being a businessman is all right with me so long as I keep contemplation alive in my soul. I hope this is a bit of an exhortation, as well as an encouragement, to the business-folks reading out there. And, the fact of the matter, is that “business-folks” ecompasses most of us.

It’s good to be in business. Dallas Willard believes that the end of man is to rule and reign, bringing all that we have authority over in this life, into submission to the glorious kingdom of God. Doing that in the business world is a noble pursuit and should be done with joy and vigour!

Last evening the Canterbury Choral Society gave a laudable performance of Verdi’s Requiem at the Oklahoma City Convention Center. The weighty lyrics were expertly matched with a full-bodied performance of the soul-shaking music. Verdi was a king of operatic composition, demanding large, theatrical gestures of the orchestra and choir through the music in order to deal adequately with the various foundational themes he explored; his Requiem is no different.

Using the Latin text of the Catholic Mass for the Dead, Verdi explores the terror of the Day of the Lord and the coming judgement, as well as the hope of the saints through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ to attain everlasting rest. For those acquainted with the Requiem, it is the Dies Irae (Day of Wrath) that carries the performance. The double choir, huge bass drum, swirling strings, and trumpet call and response all combine to strike dread in the hearts of the listeners for, “Quantus tremor est futurus, quando judex est venturus, cuncta stricte discussurus” (”How great the trembling will be, when the Judge shall come, the rigourous investigator of all things”). The rest of the Requiem is driven by the terror of the coming Day–both the cries for mercy, praises of God, and prayers for eternal rest arise out of the terrible vision of the world dissolving into embers and ashes before a holy God. Verdi’s point is loud and clear; the future is sure, the Day is coming, and none shall escape from the just Judge.

Quid sum miser tunc dicturus? (What then am I, a poor wretch, going to say?). It is a this point, when the listener realizes that there is no escape from the Judge, that all humankind is justly condemned by God, then only one answer may suffice–Jesu pie, redemisti crucem passus (merciful Jesus, having suffered the Cross, you redeemed me). The terror of being justly judged and found wanting, drives the Christian to his knees in a heart rending prayer for mercy, “not because of who I am Lord, but because of who you are and what you have done, save me…for your sake, save me.” This same prayer, resting upon the work of Christ and not of men, is repeated in full force to close the Requiem. The chorus and soprano finish the prayer with a powerful fugue, moving and building around the cry “Libera me, Domine” (”Deliver me, Lord”) from death, from eternal punishment, from separation from the King of Glory. The final measures end in sober reflection, meditating on the Day when the world shall be judged with fire, leaving the listener to walk away knowing that the cry for deliverance must echo through his life even as it echoed throughout the Requiem.

While my Protestant theology was rightly offended by some of the theology present in this Mass for the Dead, I walked away realizing that the Requiem offers a valuable perspective often overlooked in evangelical circles. God is not merely my buddy and friend; He is the Lord God of Hosts whose heaven and earth are full of His glory. I think many Protestants are unable to understand the fearfulness of that coming day because we emphasize the sureness of salvation to the point that we forget how great that salvation is because of what it has saved us from–God’s wrath. His holiness is pure, His wrath is just, and I, the worst of sinners, can only fall on my face in fear before His certain coming. I may not rest upon my works, upon my attempts at holiness, for they will crumble just as surely as the mountains will fall at His coming. The blood of Jesus is my only hope, my only surety, and, in light of the coming judgement, is of insurpassable value to me.

The insights from the Requiem cannot stand alone, and when they do, they lead to heresy; there is more to the Christian life than fear of judgement, for we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens so that we might boldy approach the throne of grace. However, a theology that forgets the power of God cannot stand alone either. It is sometimes perfectly reasonable to fall to your face in fear in the presence of Goodness and Justice, simply becasue of the magnitude of Who Goodness and Justice is.

The recent purchase by AOL of Weblogs, Inc. for $25 million sent shock-waves through the blogosphere.

Forget making a difference for the kingdom. Show me the money.

Tristan Louis did the numbers and figured out that AOL paid $564 per link to Weblogs, Inc., which prompted Business Opportunities Weblog to create the applet that identifies the dollar value of blogs, based on the $564 per-link ratio.

Mere-O? A tidy $40,082.34. Any buyers?

Dallas Willard, master philosopher and Christian, wrote an amazing book a few years ago called The Divine Conspiracy. In it he writes about how both left and right wing theology make errors regarding the Christian life, admitting he is painting with fairly broad strokes. The left, very concerned with social justice, preach a “social gospel.” This is definitely part of what the Christian life should be, but they fail to make room for an all-powerful God who is loving because for them “loving” is defined in a social context as freedom and justice.

Willard writes, “Desire becomes sacred, and whatever thwarts desire is evil or sin. We have from the Chrisitan left, after all, just another gospel of sin management, but one whose substance is provided by Western (American) social and political ideals of human existence in a secular world.”

But my primary purpose is to highlight his criticisms of the right, especially John MacArthur-style Christian ethics. I live in the Santa Clarita, CA valley, which is a hotbed of “MacArthurism” because The Master’s College is located here.

Willard spends most of his time dealing with statements made by Ryrie, but shows that the right’s understanding of the kingdom of God is primarily in reference to the after life. What this does is set up a life of “sin management”, in which one focuses on not doing bad things because Jesus has commanded us not to do those things. On the ground level, I see this work itself out as young Christians finally reach the point of burnout because of discouragement by their failures and they come thankfully back to the doctrine of grace, which is great but it is sad when someone has a crisis of belief.

The Christian life, therefore, becomes one that does not focus on the transforming power of the Holy Spirit living in us and making us a new creation. Instead it is legalistic because of this oversight for MacArthur types.

Also, because the kingdom of God is not really present in the here and now in this kind of theology, culture is often ignored. Willard’s understanding of the kingdom of God is that we are sub-creators and sub-rulers in the kingdom and as such must bring every aspect of our life under God’s authority. This means setting up a Christian culture. Many Masters students and graduates I meet look down on Biola types because we are concerned with cultural impact and apologetics, etc. According to Willard and his interpretation of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, this is a grave error and misunderstanding of the kingdom of God.

When I think of blogs that are going to have a long-term impact, two qualities come to mind: they must be insightful and edifying, and they must be entertaining. Dull blogs will capture some people for a long time, but not many. It is the bloggers who are able to engage anyone who will develop large readerships for long periods of time (one way, I think, of measuring impact).

No one has been able to have both of these together like Joe Carter of evangelicaloutpost. Joe has always been at the forefront of Christian blogging, and there’s little wonder why. His writing is more Chestertonian than any writing I know (which, I think, is the highest compliment I can pay to it)–varied, entertaining, extremely funny, while also being incredibly insightful. His analysis of Dr. Reynolds demonstrates this so well that I quote it in full:

Some professors and teachers can use the Socratic Method but John Mark Reynolds is different: he is Socrates. Like the ancient Greek, Reynolds is energetic, engaging, and constantly throwing out questions that make you think. He’s the type of philosopher that you dream of becoming during the early days of your intro to philosophy class, when you still think that the subject has some relevance to real life. When you listen to Reynolds teach you realize why they have to keep him locked up in the Ivory Tower. His love of Truth and Beauty make him far too subversive to be allowed to roam the streets. If the authorities ever catch on to what he is doing at Torrey, the way he “corrupts the youth of Athens” by teaching them how to think for themselves, there will be a hemlock cocktail with his name on it.
I can’t understate this: if you read one blog per day, read Joe’s. With content that is intellectually rigorous and writing that is perpetually entertaining, Joe is a blogger with with few equals (such as my brother, who is actually the only other equal to Joe that I can think of offhand).

In the comments to the below post, Keith argues that what prevents people from hearing the Word of God is the content of the Word of God and not the delivery.

He writes:

English readers can read books about Christianity and about the gospel in any bookstore in the country. Blogs are merely a context. A newly popular context, yes, so we should propound the truth in it, but it should be said: it is not the language, or even the style and form that prevents American non-believers from hearing the word of truth. It is the content. The wisdom of the Lord is foolishness to those who are perishing. His sheep hear his voice and recognize it.

I would contend that content is not the only obstacle to hearing the Word–the content can only be received by those who have ears to hear, and my argument below is simply that blogging, by virtue of its medium, has the inherent danger of dulling our ears to the text. The simple reason is that while books and blogs both contain words, the presentation of those words represents a significant difference between the medium. If the only thing a reader ever reads is blog posts, then it seems unlikely that they would develop the habits of reading that would be necessary to read a sustained, developed, intricate argument such as Romans. Why divorce the medium from the message?