The ever-tyrannical majority over at Wikipedia may have won the word-battle to spin Ben Stein’s Expelled as an uninteresting documentary “for Christians and the Discovery Institute,” but no matter… The truth is not killed when angry people stamp on it.

Rather, angry people die eventually, and truth sprouts up, ever-young.

Only time will tell whether Expelled tells any truth, or merely stirs up so much smoke… In the meantime, don’t be fooled by any paltry rhetoric, on either side.

Here’s five (bad) arguments why you should stay home instead of seeing Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.

Bad Reason #1. “It’s one-sided.” For some reason Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit film did not bother critics for being one-sided… Or rather, they said, “Gee, he should present the oppositions viewpoint, but I agree with him, so I liked it.” Stein lets all scientists speak for themselves, and the debate is laid out fairly, which is more than I can say for some of the other documentary-types I’ve seen lately. “Scientists are supposed to be allowed to follow the evidence wherever it may lead, no matter what the implications are. Freedom of inquiry has been greatly compromised, and this is not only anti-science, it’s anti-American.” (Stein)

Bad Reason #2. “It’s creationist propaganda.” Anyone who says this apparently has not seen the film. (Or perhaps they got up for popcorn during the first forty minutes, and missed the part Stein and and Miller carefully clarify exactly what their position is and is not.)

Intelligent design is a positive scientific case, akin to forensic science, archeology, or the principles of engineering. If archaeologists find a bridge in an unexplored region of Africa, they do not set out hypothesizing how the wood logs fell together according to natural selection, the strong logs remaining and the weak logs perishing over time, to form a functional fifty-foot bridge. They investigate which tribe of intentional agents built it. This is the rational thing to do. The strict archaeologists who nobly insists, “No, my friends! This merely looks designed! We must only consider hypotheses which do not include human agency. We are scientists!” has some ’splaining to do, as Huck Finn would say.

If police officers discover a dead man in a room, gunshot wounds in the head and heart, and a small revolver twenty paces away, they do not presume to investigate the area for the contraption by which the gun naturally and almost randomly (though in a way mysteriously “directed” by “nature”) went off, shooting the man not just once, but several times, readjusting the aim each time so as to make contact… They immediately dust the gun for fingerprints of an intentional agent, or the body for signs of struggle, a piece of hair, a nail, anything. In short, they look for a murderer. Why? Because that is the only gal’ dern rational thing to do, and you know it as well as I do, so I won’t belabor it. Now, when microbiologists discover a fully functional, city-like micro-organism such as the cell or the nucleus of a cell, they do not (unless they are like our noble and austere Archaeologist) insist upon searching for the lowest common bits out of which the protein strands were collected (by chance… but directed, randomly… according to laws), but like rational human beings and lovers of truth they ask same question the forensic scientist asks, the only rational question: “Who dunnit?”

Every scientist and philosopher is bound intellectually to proposing an answer to this question. If evolutionists cannot accept this basic point on its own terms but must constantly propose ad hominums against the person posing the question, it belies a certain reticence to face the facts. What might the deeper motive be, hm?

Now if the answer she comes up with is: “Nobody dunnit. It done happen’d on its ow-en.” that’s fine. Follow the evidence where it leads. But such a scientist must at least admit the burden of proof is on her, just as it would be on the Noble Archeologist who refuses to admit that the bridge was made, or the forensic madman who ignores fingerprints on the gun.

Bad Reason #3. “It’s boring.” I saw it twice and each time found it amusing and compelling, even in the parts with which I did not agree. It is one of precious few documentary films I have seen that a) actually presents arguments, b) actually presents both sides of the argument, and from their own mouths at that. Also, it is mildly amusing throughout.

Those who tell you its boring, I would suggest, are likely those who walked in disagreeing, and resolved not to like any part of it lest they have to defend the charge that they “liked” it as a whole.

Bad Reason #4. “It exploits the Holocaust.” Stein carefully and painfully draws the historical connection between eugenics and “Nazi science” and an evolutionary worldview wherein the weak are not fit to survive. This is sad but true. He plays this card only as lightly as he can, and plays it hard at points where the most grievous consequences might result if he didn’t. He also plays (very, very lightly) the Racism card, drawing a slim connection between a neo-Darwinistic worldview and “Planned Parenthood.” However, Stein is not black, but he is Jewish, so he sticks with his own people. A less cautious filmmaker would have struck out at any point he could reach; Stein exercised restraint and played within the boundaries of his own expertise. (I wish I could say as much for Michael Moore.)

Bad Reason #5. It’s smug and arrogant. Arrogant is a funny epithet. People throw it around a lot, but it only applies when the ‘arrogant’ person is wrong. When Muhammad Ali says, “I am the greatest,” he is just right, so it’s not (as) arrogant. When Sadam Hussein says, “Americans are dogs,” he is mistaken, and so his insolence burns like ice. Stein is confident that he is making a valid point. If it is not a valid point, then he is smug. If it is a valid point, then he is merely self-assured, and knows his place.

Bonus Bad Reason #6! Expelled currently has a 9% on Rotten Tomatoes. Pissing critics off and making news, what could be better!? (And how could a simply dismal propaganda film do that? There are very few documentaries as low as this… Even the “bad” ones have about 20%. It seems that this has struck a vein, compelling a unilateral resistance against the film? Either it is so bad people feel compelled to go out of their way to promote its awfulness, or else it is stoking the heart of the hornets nest, and earning a just reward.) [Warning: Incoming Genetic fallacy!] Of course, the measly 9% is amongst the (generally more neo-Darwinistic critiques. The general populous gives it a respectable 53%.

In theological circles, the idea of ‘mission’ is clearly the concept du jour. While the idea of the missio Dei–the mission of God–extends at least as far back as Saint Augustine’s magesterial De Trinitate, the notion that the Church should likewise be ‘missional’ has only caught fire in the last decade.

In other words, the idea that Christians should be ‘missional’ is not a new idea at all. The evangelistic impulse led to the spread of the Gospel in the Roman Empire and has been renewed in every generation since then. The contemporary impulse to return ‘missional’ to the center of the life of the Church, however, has been largely a reaction to the professionalization of missionary activities and the alleged isolationist, protectionist ecclesiology of 19th century Western Christianity.

In the background of this discussion is British missionary, pastor, and theologian Leslie Newbigin. His work The Gospel in a Pluralist Society is an extended critique of the Church’s response to modernity and his proposal for Christian living in a pluralist society.

Upon reading Newbigin, I was surprised to read that his concept of ‘mission’ differs considerably from many of its proponents today. The term is often used to describe the external focus of the Church–that is, focused on the lost and on the world–in everything she does. Those churches that are not ‘missional,’ by implication, have focused only on experiencing life together as Christians. In its worst forms, missional churches strike me as little more than hip and theologically sophisticated seeker-sensitive churches–tailoring everything they do to the presence of unbelievers.

Newbigin’s account of being ‘missional,’ though, is different than its current uses. He writes:

In discussions about the contemporary mission of the Church it is often said that the Church ought to address itself to the real questions which people are asking. That is to misunderstand the mission of Jesus and the mission of the Church. The world’s questions are not the questions which lead to life. What really needs to be said is that where the Church is faithful to the Lord, there the powers of the kingdom are present and people begin to ask the question which to which the gospel is the answer. And that, I suppose, is why the letters of St. Paul contain so many exhortations to faithfulness but no exhortations to be active in mission.

Newbigin’s idea of being ‘missional’ is much more sophisticated than “reaching the lost.” Indeed, he moves that goal to the periphery of the mission of the church. He writes:

In this sketch of the logic of mission, it is obvious that the center of the picture is not occupied by the question of the saving, or the failure to save, individual souls from perdition…We must also consider the important passage in Romans 9-11 where Paul gives his most fully developed theology of mi9ssion, and here the center of the picture is the eschatalogical event in which the fullness of the Gentiles will have been gathered in and all of Israel will be saved…Plainly Paul is not thinking in terms fo the individual but in terms of the interpretation of universal history. The center of the picture is the eschatological event in which the fathomless depths of God’s wisdom and grace will be revealed.

Our desire to preach the gospel, then, is not fundamentally motivated by the salvation of individual souls, though that is clearly important. Rather, at the center of the mission of the Church is our desire to be with Christ. Again, Newbigin writes:

When Jesus sent out his disciples on his mission, he showed them his hands and his side. They will share in his mission as they share in his passion, as they follow him in challenging and unmasking the powers of evil. There is no other way to be with him. At the heart of mission is simply the desire to be with him and to give him the service of our lives. At the heart of mission is thanksgiving and praise.

Churches that promote being missional, then, run the risk of moving the peripheral concerns of the gospel to the center. A Church need not try to be missional. If it is a Church at all–that is, if it is the people of God gathered together to dwell with Christ in the power of His Spirit–then it will inevitably be missional.
The critiques of American evangelicalism by emergent Christians and post-evangelicals have some merit. But on a deep level, they miss the mark. The problem with late 20th-century evangelicalism is not that it ceased to be missional. Rather, it is that it ceased to be marked by a deep desire and love for the person of Jesus Christ. That is, it ceased to say with Paul that it desired to “know Him, the fellowship of His sufferings and the power of His resurrection, being conformed to His death in order that [he] may somehow attain to the resurrection from the dead.” If they had made this their intent and focus, they could be nothing but missional in their approach to the Gospel.

Noah Millman, in commenting upon the Derbyshire dust-up, writes:

I continue to believe that both sides of the Darwin vs. Christianity battle are missing the most telling point. We should all agree that religious dogma has no bearing on the truth or falsity of a scientific theory. Heliocentrism is true; geocentrism is false. There is an enormous weight of evidence behind the theory of evolution by natural selection. There is going to be more and more evidence behind new theories about the workings of the human mind, and the interactions of the human genome and human personality. All religion can do is react to these discoveries and, as part of that reaction, caution us about drawing unwarranted conclusions (political, moral, what-have-you) from the evidence. But I don’t think that’s the end of the story, because I think science does have implications for the persuasiveness of specific religious doctrines, simply as a psychological matter. And I think evolution through natural selection is extremely uncongenial to the central Christian story about the nature of sin and evil in the world. Why? Because the Christian story has the entry of strife into the world come about as the result of human sin, whereas the core idea behind evolution by natural selection is that our existence – and the consciousness and ability to sin that comes with it – is a product of strife. Put bluntly: natural selection is not the mechanism that the Christian deity would use to create man in His image. Or, if it is, I’d like to see the explanation. I think that natural selection poses similar but less-acute problems for Judaism and Islam; it poses the fewest problems, I suspect, for Hinduism. Again: I’m not speaking of science refuting religion. I’m speaking of scientific results making certain core religious claims less persuasive.

Millman captures the philosophical tension between Darwinism and Christianity well.

But it is not a tension that is limited to the explanation for evil.  If natural selection erodes the Christian concept of ’sin,’ then it does so only by virtue of its own inability to explain goodness, the concept upon which the Christian notion of sin depends.  On the one hand, the Christian teaching of the imago dei is that human nature is fundamentally good.  On the other hand, the Darwinian narrative implies that human nature is born in strife and grows out of strife.  At best, its goodness and the goodness it creates is ancillary to its nature, rather than inherent to it like Christianity teaches.
There are, of course, attempts by evolutionary ethicists to ground ethics in the evolutionary process, just as there are attempts to Christians to incorporate the notion of the fall into evolutionary theory.  I am, in fact, not arguing against those attempts.

My aim is simply to point out that in addition to being an astute observation of the effects of Darwinian science on Christian theology, Millman’s point implicates Darwinian ethics.  I think Chesterton got it exactly right when he said the doctrine of sin is the only doctrine of Christianity that can be empirically proved.  The existence of sin makes the burden for evolutionary ethics tht much heavier and the plausibility of Darwinian science’s presuppositions much less persuasive.

In a recent homily, Pope Benedict described the current intellectual climate in the world as a ‘dictatorship of relativism.‘ While the phrase was welcomed in many corners (like mine), it was challenged as disingenuous and incoherent at The Corner by John Derbyshire, one of the Corner’s resident atheists.

Of course religious belief is relativistic. Religious people say it is! Suppose I line up a Christian, a Moslem, and a Hindu, and ask: “You guys all promote a different set of ‘fundamental truths.’ How can I figure out who’s right and who’s wrong? What external test can I apply? What can any of you point to in the beliefs of the others that doesn’t square with observable facts about the world, or about human life?” What will they say? After a lot of babbling and pointing, it will boil down to: “You gotta have faith. You have to feel the truth within yourself.” In other words, it’s an interior, subjective experience. What’s more relative than that? There is no objective test one can apply to confirm or falsify statements like “Jesus was the Son of God,” or “Mohammed was the Messenger of God,” or “Vishnu has four arms.” You just gotta believe. How is that not relative?

Derbyshire is a smart guy, but he commits three errors here. One, he presumes that for a thing to be true, there must be some “objective test” that can “confirm or falsify his statements.” This smacks of logical positivism in its least sophisticated version. To the extent that Derbyshire’s approach is positivistic (and it seems it is), it suffers from the traditional weaknesses of the theory. For instance, it’s not clear whether Derbyshire’s claims measure up to his own standard of ‘testability.’

Second, Derbyshire clearly thinks that special revelation is a private, subjective experience. That is a hard claim to make given the manifestly overt and public nature of the revelation of Jesus Christ. Perhaps if he had limited himself to private, subjective revelations he may have saved himself the trouble of dying on a cross. Alas, he did not. It is fair to claim that Jesus was in fact not the Son of God. It is, however, an odd claim to make that he revealed himself as such in public fashion. The question of the veracity of his claims is a question for theologians and historians to answer–and answer according to the standards of their own respective disciplines.

What’s more, Derbyshire has committed a basic philosophical category error: he has conflated his epistemology with his ontology. Even granting him that there is no “test” that would demonstrate the truth of religious propositions, it is not at all the case that such propositions are in fact relative–i.e. subjective, personal, and true for some people but not others. Rather, it simply means that the access to those truths is limited to those to whom access is granted. But this in no way makes them true for only those to whom they have been granted.Derbyshire makes a great political commentor, but a terrible philosopher. For his own sake (and ours), let’s hope he sticks to the former.

(HT: John Schroeder)

In a post-modern political environment, the personal becomes the political not because we are interested in questions of character or integrity–questions that might affect the officeholder’s ability to perform the functions of his office–but because the media needs the dynamism of ‘personality’ to make politicians more ‘dramatic.’

In a typically insightful piece of analysis, Ross Douthat writes:

I take his point, but I think it’s worth mounting a more vigorous defense of talking about issues like the Obama-Wright connection or Hillary’s fibs about Tuzla or even the essentially absurd flag-on-the-lapel controversy. I don’t think these topics matter just because they’re “symbolic”; I think they matter because they’re personal, because they tell us something (or seem to tell us something) about the psychology of the person we’re being asked to vote for. Now, obviously the mainstream press tends to overplay the personal issues, because they make for better theater and higher ratings and all the rest, and because television hosts, in particular, seem to live in terror of finding themselves too deep in the policy weeds. And just as obviously, these issues make easy fodder for partisan attacks, which is why they’re so often whipped up by the noise machines of the right and (increasingly) the left. But that doesn’t mean that they don’t or shouldn’t matter.

Why do they matter? Well, because picking a man (or woman) to hold the office of the Presidency is an awesome responsibility: By voting to elevate Barack Obama or John McCain or anyone to the White House, you’re voting to vest an immense amount of responsibility in a single individual; indeed, you’re essentially voting to grant them the sort of powers that the monarchs of old could only dream about. Yes, of course, Presidents are restrained by Congress and the Courts and the Constitution (well, sometimes), but there’s still a very real sense in which we’re electing a temporary king. And what was true in the court of European rulers way back when is likewise true for modern American Presidents: The personal is political. By this I mean that when we elect a new chief executive, we aren’t just electing to live with their policy positions. We’re deciding to live with their personalities – their sexual appetites and Daddy issues, their spouses and their friends, their religious beliefs and their psychodramas – for four or eight long years. (Or more, in our dynastic age, since we’ve been in Bushworld since 1988, and Clintonland since ’92.)

Ross is much smarter than I. But he seems to give too much credence to the post-modern deconstructionist tendency of modern politics in defending the “freak show.” Personality and psychology have trumped character as the categories in which we think, which is why books can now be written psychoanalyzing the President’s policies through the lens of his relationship with his father. While there may be merit to such theses, such reductionist theories seem to crowd out the possibility of independent thought, personal growth, and (above all) a role for policy untainted by personal issues in the political arena. That is, such an approach depends upon psychologizing of the human person that reduces his behaviors to history. While character formation is clearly a historical process, the notion of the human soul, upon which Aristotelian virtue theory depends, creates a gap between the history and behavior that empirical deconstruction cannot fill.

In other words, psychology’s pre-eminence in the political arena crowds out more traditional understandings of virtue. While the personal may be the political, our understanding of the person has changed so significantly and our desire to see that person’s life played out in public increased so dramatically that it is nearly impossible for me to find the current political milieu the least bit encouraging. While conservatives may have to play the game to get their candidate elected, I would rather spend a bit more time thinking about how we can re-write the rules.

How are ’salvation’ and ‘the Gospel’ related?

In a mildly controversial answer to that question, Mark Byron (whom you should be reading every day) writes:

Salvation is important, but it isn’t the entirety of the Gospel. My mind goes to the euphemism “Full Gospel” that some Pentecostal types use to describe themselves, insinuating that garden-variety evangelicals avoid the parts of the Gospel that include the Holy Spirit as a hands-on day-to-day player in our lives today.

An overly-salvation-centric Gospel presentation (yes, there can be such) will underplay discipleship and learning about God as a whole. Most folks don’t have that problem, since a salvation message isn’t PC, requiring folks know both that they are sinners in need of a savior and that a Savior is there at the ready to accept them as-is. It’s easy to sugar-coat that issue in a secular setting, but it’s also easy to get off on a fire-and-brimestone tangent, where we focus on our sinfulness and our need of a risen Savior.

At issue here is the language of salvation, and the difficult doctrine of forensic justification.  For those in the Catholic and Orthodox branches of Christianity, ’salvation’ encompasses the sanctifying work of Christ.  In those theological frameworks, it would be impossible for a salvation-centric gospel presentation to not include discipleship and spiritual disciplines.

If my reading of Calvin (the Reformer with whom I am most familiar) is correct, he is in line with this understanding of the notion of salvation.  The two graces–justification and sanctification–are given together, and only given in Christ.  Salvation is being ‘in Christ,’ which necessarily includes both.
Such an understanding of salvation seems at odds with many evangelical ecclesiologies (including seeker-sensitive ecclesiologies), which seem to separate the work of discipleship from the work of salvation.  If salvation necessarily transforms us and the world around us, then the Church could not be the Church without fostering discipleship and spiritual disciplines.  As it is, those Churches that view the sanctifying work of God as accidental to our salvation undermine not only the Gospel, but the reality of our union with Christ.
I would disagree, then, with what (I think) Mark is saying.  The issue is not that the Gospel is larger than salvation.  It is rather that our concept of salvation is too small.  We are ’saved,’ we are ‘being saved’, and we ‘will be saved.’  Our salvation produces, encompasses, and is perfected by our discipleship and our continuing intimacy and union with Christ.

One of the more interesting stories to come out in recent months has been the shift that Willow Creek has been undertaking.  For those not aware, Willow Creek has been the flagship for ’seeker sensitive’ congregations.

However, in recent months, they have revealed that their own methodology of tailoring their church services to non-believers has been less effective than they thought.  Skye Jethani at Out of Ur reports:

Today, Greg Hawkins, executive pastor at Willow, recapped the study and then shared some changes that the church is now making in response to the research. He said they’re making the biggest changes to the church in over 30 years. For three decades Willow has been focused on making the church appealing to seekers. But the research shows that it’s the mature believers that drive everything in the church—including evangelism.

Hawkins says, “We used to think you can’t upset a seeker. But while focusing on that we’ve really upset the Christ-centered people.” He spoke about the high levels of dissatisfaction mature believer have with churches. Drawing from the 200 churches and the 57,000 people that have taken the survey, he said that most people are leaving the church because they’re not being challenged enough.

Because it’s the mature Christians who drive evangelism in the church Hawkins says, “Our strategy to reach seekers is now about focusing on the mature believers. This is a huge shift for Willow.”

Delightful, shocking, informative, perpetually light-hearted while deadly-serious, at times almost moving… Ben Stein’s documentary on the “Big Science’s” resistance of “smart new ideas” in biology, physics and cosmology, is a must-see.
Stylistically, the film cuts back and forth from 50’s black-and-white film clips to recent interviews with some of the world’s leading scientists. The cut-away clips of Leave-It-To-Beaver-esque innocence and plastic smiles kept the audience chuckling the whole way through. (At least until the visit to Dakow.)

Thematically, Stein goes for the jugular. America is built upon freedom, he states. Freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of scientific research. A community or idea that resists free inquiry into ideas and theories best supported by the evidence is not just a bully, but is deeply anti-American. The neo-Darwinist establishment is just such a bully, says Stein.

Remarkably even-handed (as much as such an agenda-driven documentary can be), we hear the perspective of established scientific elites from their own mouths. The results are sometimes expected, sometimes scripted, sometimes slightly confusing, and sometimes horrifying… The (highly likable) Texan’s confessions about his lost hope for free-will and meaning in life chills the blood.

Of course, not everyone was chuckling: “When clueless creationists… throw away buckets of money making elaborate propaganda films arguing… nonsense, it’s worse than inane. It’s as if they have completely missed the point of the idea they are damning.” PZ Meyers

Agree or disagree, you have to ask yourself: why is it striking such a nerve? See it, consider both sides, and do your own research.

Oh yeah, the climactic interview with Dr. Richard Dawkins is worth the price of admission, twice over.

God, Nature, Evolution, or whatever has so ordained that we come to the most interesting conclusions only means of the most boring arguments, and that the most immediately fun and interesting topics of conversation take us to the most boring of places. This is why Thomas Aquinas is so famous yet so arduous to read, and why, though a delightful story-teller, in one or two decades no one will know Doug Greshm’s name. This is also why the State of the Union is heard, remembered, criticized, praised, and otherwise discussed for weeks, though it is dry, slow, and dull to listen to, and stand-up comics (except for a few memorable phrases, repeated for a quick laugh) are fun, zesty, and interesting to listen to, but have little lasting effect on the audience other than removing the burden of a few idle minutes and a few extra dollars.

Begrudgingly, and nobly accepting this fact, I have resolved to prove, by meticulous argument proceeding from universally accepted premises, advancing only the clearest and most precise inferences, the following inevitable divine truth: God only allows human beings to keep good things at which they are able to laugh.

Premise #1: God (or the universe, or nature, or whatever) is good.

Corollary #1: God (etc.) wants to give all good things for human beings, and no bad things.

Premise #2: The same good thing may be beneficial or detrimental to two different human beings, depending on the human being’s capacity (ie how they handle it, respond, etc.)

Corollary #2: Human beings can appropriately handle some things, and not others.

Corollary #3: Human beings can learn to handle things well that they didn’t before, and forget to handle well what before they did.
Premise #4: Some things are just funny. As in, actually funny. Intrinsically funny. Universally and absolutely funny, silly and giddy. Objectively worthy of laughter, mirth, sometimes even mockery and playful imitation.

Corollary #1: Some things are not funny.
Premise #5: To laugh at unfunny things is inappropriate.

Corollary #1: To not laugh at funny things is equally inappropriate.

Conclusion #1: Wanting only good things, it follows that He (they, it, whatever) will give a good thing to a human being if and only if he has the capacity to handle it appropriately.

Corollary #1: If we do not have some good thing, it is possible to learn (in time) to handle it appropriately, and we will eventually receive it.

Corollary #2: If we have some good thing, it is possible to forget or cease how to handling it appropriately, and we will eventually lose it.

Premise #6: If God (etc.) gives us a good thing that is funny, silly, zany, dumb, and mockable, and we fail to laugh at it, then we will lose it.

Premise #7: Money, for instance, is a good thing.

Premise #8: Money, for another instance, is a laughable thing. Funny, dumb, ridiculous, chuckle-worthy, at times even absolutely hilarious.
Conclusion #2: If God (etc.) gives us money, and we laugh at it, we will keep it.

Corollary #1: If we do not laugh at it, we will lose it.

Q.E.D.

I have the privilege of taking “The History & Traditions of Christian Spirituality” with Dr. Greg Peters, a terribly sensible junior faculty member of the Torrey Honors Institute.

In good classical education fashion, rather than simply lecturing to us for three hours a week, he lectures for two hours, and forces us students to do a  presentation on large chunks of history and spirituality.

He doesn’t do this in order to relieve his teaching load, but because, as they say, “teaching is the best way to learn.” This has proved true, yet again, and I had the joy of researching some of the history of the Byzantine era, the 7th-15th century medeival eastern church.

The two events of greatest historical significance are the Great Schism and the Seventh Ecumenical Council. Those of us raised Protestant may often discuss the Reformation, wherein Protestants separated from the erroneous medieval Roman Catholic Church, but rarely (if ever) do we discuss the Great Schism, wherein the Roman Catholic Church from which we so violently separated, separated itself from the other four great patriarchates.

Also significant is the 7th Ecumenical council, which took place (to my surprise) before the Schism. Despite their disagreements, East and West were of one mind and spirit and purpose about the use of “holy images” in Christian worship, if it is done carefully and with proper understanding of the distinction between creation and Creator.

Here is a teaser, necessarily brief and inadequate, by way of introducing to these two great issues, from an angle admittedly sympathetic to pre-schism Christianity. I would encourage Christian scholars, pastors, and laypeople to begin looking into this period of history and these issues, which remain central to our Christian faith today. (more…)

I am excited about the Symposium that Joe Carter is hosting at Evangelical Outpost, and quite honored to be a judge. I would strongly encourage all my Mere-O neighbors to enter, as I think the topic is particularly stimulating (not to mention a refreshing break from the political realm!).

Here’s the question:

If the medium affects the message, how will the Christian message be affected by the new media?

John Schroeder at Blogotional has already pointed the direction for a few essays:

• The question is not well formed. Christianity is more than just “message.” That being said; however, how we present our ideas affects the results of the presentation, but it is the results that REALLY matter.
• Blogging seems amplify ignorance, prejudice, and just plain bad thinking as much as it does the good stuff, at least within ignorant, prejudiced, and poor-thinking circles.
• Blogging is a poor substitute for a relationship; remember, God incarnated
• Ideas don’t change people, the Holy Spirit does
• It is much harder to be graceful in writing

I’d be interested to hear those thoughts developed.

And did I mention that the prizes are definitely worth having? They are so good, in fact, that I almost considered not judging.

(1) A full tuition scholarship for a Christian high school student of the winner’s choice to Wheatstone Academy. [A $950 value]

(2) The ‘Quintessentials’ from Stand to Reason, including the Ambassador Basic Curriculum, Tactics in Defending the Faith DVD, Decision Making and the Will of God CD set, and a signed copy of Greg Koukl’s new book Relativism: Feet Firmly Planted in Mid-Air. [A $150 value]
(3) A $200 donation made to Compassion International in the name of the winning blogger.

(4) A full-tuition scholarship to the upcoming GodBlogCon (September 2008). [A $150 value]
(5) A two-year subscription to Touchstone Magazine. [A $59.95 value]
(6) A year subscription to Townhall magazine. [A $34.95 value]

Entries will be accepted until Friday, April 25th. Email entries to eosubmissions@gmail.com.

And don’t forget that the Symposium is sponsored by Wheatstone Academy, where your high schooler can spend quality time with my wife, not to mention the many other notable figures that will be there, like John Mark Reynolds, J.P. Moreland and Sean McDowell.

As many people have noted, Clyde Cook–the president of my alma mater Biola University for 25 years–passed away this past Friday in his home in Fullerton, California.
Memorials abound, including this post by Professor John Mark Reynolds.  A group of journalism students at Biola has also created a blog to chronicle stories about Dr. Cook.

It is impossible to describe just how much Dr. Cook was admired by students of the university.  His near-universal respect had much to do with his genuine concern for students and his Reagen-esque sense of humor.

For example, by the time I was a sophomore at Biola, the university had developed a significant parking problem.  When Dr. Cook was introduced at convocation that spring, he delayed his entrance to the building, then ran in with his jacket off and out of breath.  The audience was, naturally, a touch confused.  It was unlike Dr. Cook to be late, and it was rare for him to be seen without a jacket.  When he made it to the microphone, he lamented that he couldn’t find a parking spot and that he had to park all the way across campus.

Dr. Cook shepherded Biola through a period of enormous expansion.  When Dr. Cook took over in the early 1980s, Biola was struggling to stay afloat.  Morale dropped considerably around campus, and buildings and the grounds fell into disrepair due to budget difficulties.  It was Dr. Cook’s insistence that the grounds and buildings be maintained that helped keep morale high and that allowed for the growth in the 1990s.  Dr. Cook’s steady guidance through that period helped Biola become one of the elite Christian universities in the world.

Though I never had the honor of knowing Dr. Cook personally, my many friends who were able to spend time with him and his wife had nothing but the highest praises for his commitment to prayer, to service, and to loving those around him.  I have no doubt he is the sort of man whose impact will never be fully known, and far more extensive than it might seem.

Clyde Cook was 73.

Read his biography and about his legacy here.

The most interesting aspect of the 2008 race on the Republican side was the discussion that emerged about the future of the party.  Weighing in relatively frequently on the issue was Rod Dreher, whose perspective on issues I sometimes disagree with, but always admire.

That conversation has continued, with this latest installment from Dreher.  As they say, read the whole thing.  Here’s the conclusion:

Borrowing from that, is it too absurd to propose (as Tory Anarchist does) that the ideas that will reinvigorate conservatism as a viable approach to politics will come — will have to come — from thinkers who are willing to engage the conservative tradition outside the channels and forms (and forums) that have been created over the past 30 years or so? Or can the reform of conservatism take place within the framework of existing institutions (which is the temperamentally conservative response)? To what extent does the maintenance of those institutions within the movement politics of conservatism prevent the kind of fresh, even radical, thinking apparently necessary to revive intellectual and applied conservatism? Where will the new institutions come from, especially insofar as they are not likely to advance the interests of large corporations, which fund the existing institutions on the Right? Where will the new thinkers come from — and the new journalists (like Buckley in his day) to publicize and popularize their ideas? (Well, easier to produce the latter than the former). Where will the patrons come from, men and women of means and conservative convictions that challenge the liberal economic order?

This is actually a great time to be a conservative, despite what it looks like. Conservatism is dead. Long live conservatism!

UPDATE: Shorter version of this post: “More ISI, less CPAC.”

If anything, what previous generations of conservatism had and what we currently lack is statesmen.  Buckley, in fact, may have been the last conservative statesman standing (though I have hope for someone like Rick Santorum).  Republicans have turned their focus toward practical ends while neglecting the theoretical virtue that ought undergird their prescriptions (hence the trend of pundits rejecting graduate school).  Hence, when Rod concludes “More ISI, less CPAC,” he has identified the core of the problem exactly right.  If conservatives wish to recover their ideological mooring and discover plausible solutions to new challenges, they would do well to recover the robust understanding of human nature that they once founded their politicizing upon (see Kirk, Russell).