Enjoying Precipice

It's always fun to find a new blog, e-magazine, website, whatever that really speaks your language and emphasizes what you emphasize. That has been my experience at Precipice Magazine.

It's thrust it toward a postmodern, Emergent view of faith and scripture. Some of the more interesting features of Precipice are as follows:

1. Inform: This is essentially a page of quotes that (they feel) encapsulate postmodern Christianity. I happen to love thoughtful quotes and enjoyed reading through these.

2. Perspectives: The writers at Precipice have developed a "Postmodern Canon," which they admit is a bit pretentious. Nonetheless, they have done their best to list the 40 books that they feel are central to understanding the movement. It works as a great reading list for interested learners.

3. The Current: This is essentially the blog portion of the site, where the authors interact with stuff from around the blogosphere and comment.

There are other features to check out, but those are my favorites. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Brian McLaren on Postmodernity and Truth

Great Q&A here where Brian responds to a question about postmodernity. There is a perception around many conservative evangelical circles that suggests postmodernity is synonymous with denying truth (or absolute truth, or moral absolutes, all essentially saying the same thing). Of course that is untrue. Brian gives a great response.

...I won't try to speak for "postmodernism," but let me speak for myself.

Of course I believe that some things are morally good and others are morally evil. Of course!

But I do not believe that Christian fundamentalism (or Islamic fundamentalism, or secular fundamentalism, etc., etc.) has a superior record of identifying what is moral and what isn't moral in contested situations. For example, in my lifetime Christian fundamentalists have been among the last to release racism, sexism, a careless attitude toward the environment, a careless attitude toward the rights of Palestinians, a fear of science, and a fusion between the gospel and American nationalism.
Go back farther in history, and there were a majority of Bible-believing Christians in the South who were pro-slavery - and held that as an "absolute truth" or "absolute moral principle" that they could quote chapter and verse to defend. (I'll explore this in some detail in my upcoming book.)

Go back still farther, and our Christian ancestors refused to believe Copernicus and Galileo - again, based on their conception of moral absolutes based on their readings of the Bible. The same was true regarding the age of the earth, Darwin, etc.
So here's my concern: If a person or group pushes the "we've got moral absolutes absolutely figured out" button too fast or too often, they run an increased risk of behaving in immoral ways, and they are the last to know it because of their excessive self-confidence. If conservative Christians would acknowledge this pattern at work in their own history more openly, and if they would show how they have taken corrective action to avoid similar patterns of misjudgment in the future, a lot of us would feel more confident in their moral judgment.

He sums it uo thusly:

So - perhaps we can put this question to rest for good: the issue isn't morality - with some "fer it" and others "agin it." We're all for morality, as we understand it. The issue is two-fold. Postmodern-leaning folks are concerned whether this or that preacher's claims to have "absolute certainty" about this or that moral viewpoint of his are "absolutely justified," and whether his confidence will increase the chances of behaving immorally. Modern-leaning folks are concerned whether leaving the door open to the possibility that "we" have been or are wrong will lead to moral collapse. If you let an absolutist system go, there will be nothing left, they fear.

I'd say there are dangers on both sides - the danger of excessive moral confidence on the one side and the danger of insufficient moral confidence on the other. I'm seeking a proper confidence ... one that is aware of both dangers on both sides.
In my view, only God has absolute moral knowledge. Human beings have shown a remarkable propensity to misinterpret God, all the while claiming to speak for God on morality, which (sadly) often degenerates into speaking as if they were God... (emphasis mine)

Beautiful point.

I consider myself a postmodern person. I also feel like no ideology, worldview, belief system, whatever, should be swallowed wholly or uncritically. Modernity has some great elements and some ugly elements. Postmodernity has some great elements and some ugly elements. The same is true for Buddhism, Communism, Calvinism, the Emergent Church, Catholicism, whatever. Categorizing is helpful for some things, but often it divides and excludes. May we keep this in mind wherever we encounter ideas: look for the truth, that we might embrace it, and leave the rest.

PS I had knee surgery today and will be out of work for about 10 days. Since I won't be able to move much, I may actually blog quite a bit in these next weeks. Stay tuned! It would be fun to converse.

Piper and Boyd on the Tornado

You may already be aware that a number of tornados struck the Twin Cities area earlier this week. You may also be aware that John Piper attempted to explain the tornados as God's providence warning the ELCA (who was meeting about the issue of homosexuality) not to tolerate sin. It even made it on the evening news.

There is a lot I could say about this, and if you've read this blog with any regularity you know how much I think Piper's article is in poor taste. A resonate with Greg Boyd's sentiment when he says, "I feel I need to offer a public response, if only to remind non-Christians that not all Christians think like this."

Read his full response here.

UPDATE: Tony Jones and Scot McKnight (briefly) both comment on this as well.

Francis Collins on Evolution

Scot Mcknight had an interesting link to an interview with Francis Collins, a Christian who is an evolutionist. Funny, isn't it, how that statement isn't as out of place as it would have been ten years ago?

Anyway, the interviewer, Karl Gilbertson, does a great job in asking the right questions, the hard questions that many creationists would ask. He takes Collins to task with the questions like "Isn't evolution just a scientific conspiracy to mask the truth?" and others that you hear fundamentalists asking, but you never really hear dialogue about. Collins responds beautifully, in my opinion.

If you've read this blog at all in the past, you probably know that I am extremely interested in this discussion. And the word discussion is key, though I may want to call it dialogue instead. Until the last few years there was not much dialogue between creationists and evolutionists. They would just throw stones at each other which would ignite the fray, and sadly, but perhaps not surprisingly the Christians were often the ones who were the most immature in this battle. That is why this interview is such a breath of fresh air to me.

By the way, the number of scientists like Francis Collins who are Christians and evolutionists is growing. There are a number of books available that talk of the Bible and evolution going hand in hand (including the interviewer Gilbertson's book Saving Darwin: How to Be a Christian and Believe in Evolution). The ideas are no longer mutually exclusive. That is refreshing to me.

Here or some high points from the interview, but note: it is really best if you read the whole thing for yourself. Thanks for stopping by!

(Gilbertson is in bold, Collins in regular font).

Heliocentricity is so well-established that educated people simply can't oppose it any longer, of course. What about common ancestry and evolution in general? How compelling is the evidence at this point?


The evidence is overwhelming. And it is becoming more so almost by the day, especially because we can now use DNA as a digital record of the way Darwin's theory has played out over the course of time.

Darwin could hardly have imagined that there would turn out to be such strong proof of his theory—he didn't know about DNA. Evolution is now profoundly well-documented from multiple different perspectives, all of which give you a consistent view with enormous explanatory power that makes it the central core of biology. Trying to do biology without evolution would be like trying to do physics without mathematics.

Evolution is this gigantic, complicated tapestry of interwoven bits of explanatory power. But this big tapestry of evolution is filled with holes. It still hangs together, of course, but it does have holes. For example, evolution requires the invocation of common ancestors that we don't have any fossil record for; we don't really know anything about them, other than indirect dna inferences. A layperson is understandably skeptical when they are told that there's this tree of life going back to a common ancestor and all these life-forms are on the tree but we have no direct evidence for most of them and we have to infer them hypothetically. Doesn't it bother you that there are so many missing pieces in the puzzle?


Should people doubt the existence of electrons because they've never seen one? A lot of what we know to be true about physics is also inferred. I know it bothers people who are not really convinced yet about the consistency of evolutionary theory, but the much-emphasized gaps do not represent any real threat to the overall framework. And is the absence of a fossil representation of a specific organism all that troubling when you realize that fossilization is extremely unlikely to have happened?

Based on the DNA sequences of many mammals, we can now predict the genome sequence of the common mammalian ancestor. And it's breathtaking that you can actually look now at the dna sequence, which is a fossil record of its own, of an organism that is long since gone, but that we and all other mammals are descended from.

Evolution may seem from the outside to have a lot of complexities, and certainly there are lots of details we haven't worked out—and for anybody to say there are no arguments would be a total mistake. But nearly all scientists agree upon descent from a common ancestor, gradual change over a long period of time, and natural selection operating to produce the diversity of living species. There is no question that those are correct. Evolution is not a theory that is going to be discarded next week or next year or a hundred thousand years from now. It is true.

There is a remarkable claim being made today by anti-evolutionists that runs exactly counter to this. This is the claim that evolution is based on a big deception, that there isn't any solid basis at all for the theory, and that scientists are gradually abandoning evolution. Are there evolutionists jumping ship?

I haven't met any of these people. And I think I would hear about it, if it were true, as I have identified myself as a believer interested in studying biological evolution. No, I think those claims are completely without evidence.

Stating this is a convenient way to float the idea that evolution is a conspiracy that is about to be exposed. That's the idea behind the movie Expelled, which tries to make that same case—that there is a conspiracy to squash the truth. That viewpoint totally misunderstands the nature of science. Anybody who has lived within the scientific community would immediately—regardless of their worldview—rebel against the idea that science would be able to sustain such a conspiracy. Scientists are all about upsetting and overturning things. And if you're the one who's discovered how to overturn evolution, you're going to win the Nobel Prize!

The position that people on the outside of science—like the creationists and the people in the id camp—have adopted, that such a conspiracy could actually exist for more than thirty seconds, completely flies in the face of the realities of the sociology of the field of science. It's an insult.

We are all part of social groups, and people we trust tell us things. I believe in evolution because people like you that I trust have told me it's true. I've never done a genome sequence; I've never done a fossil dig. So what do I—Karl Giberson—really know about evolution? All I know is that people I trust say it's true and people that I have less confidence in say it is not. But how are people outside the scientific community supposed to navigate this complex web of social authority, to try and figure out which voices they should listen to, and which voices they shouldn't?

Consider credentials. On paper the credentials of the better creationists and id people are like yours and mine. Take you and Michael Behe. You both have PhDs. You have both done research and published articles. So if somebody wants to put Behe up against Collins and say, "Well, here's a guy and I like what he says. And here's another guy and I don't like what he says. And you're asking me to follow Collins over Behe? Well, why should I do that?"
Well, that is a fundamental problem we're facing in our culture, especially in the United States. It's why we have such a mismatch between what the scientific data would suggest and what many people believe about things like the age of the Earth and about whether evolution is true or not.

If you ask about data-driven questions, about what is true and what is the evidence to support it—you would want to go to the people who are the professionals who spend their lives trying to answer those questions and ask, "Is there a consensus view?" So you ask, "What is the age of the Earth?" Well, who does that work? It is the geologist and the cosmologists and the people who do radiocarbon dating. It is the fossil record people and so on. So you ask, "Is this an unanswered question?" And the answer you would get is that the issue is settled. The age of the earth is 4.55 billion years.

How have people in fundamentalist churches responded to you, when you have spoken there?

I've had people get up and walk out! And I've had people come to the microphone clearly very upset, and imply that I am under the influence of the devil. I also get some fairly unpleasant emails from the atheistic scientific community, but the nastiest ones come from believers who are infuriated that someone who claims to be a believer could say these things about the truth of the evolutionary process. To them, I am clearly a wolf in sheep's clothing, and I'm allied with the devil. I've even been excommunicated a couple of times, though I'm not Catholic!

Ken Wilson on Darwin

Why not break the blog drought, eh? I is no secret how busy I've been in the last 6 months with a new job requiring more time and mental energy and going grad school full time. However, I'm going to try to get back into "reference posts", a term I just made up 5 seconds ago for the kind of post where I simply link to another story I find interesting and give it some pub. Is there an actual name for that?

Nonetheless, this is a very interesting article looking at the life of Charles Darwin on his 200th birthday. Perhaps there is no other figure in history who has been more slandered and scoffed at for merely discovering and doing his job. Evangelicals have certainly been hard on CD. Ken Wilson defends him, and even points to a number of evangelicals in his day who were open to Darwin's ideas.

Darwin’s friend and colleague Asa Gray, a Harvard botanist and devout evangelical, saw no inherent conflict either between natural selection and a creating God. In fact, Asa Gray did more to promote Darwin’s writings in the United States than any other scientist. He was one of Darwin’s closest friends. An evangelical.

But these evangelicals took the time to understand Darwin’s idea and consider the evidence for it. They sought to understand the man before calling him dangerous or his ideas heretical. They could understand if the man was too busy with his beetles and barnacles to integrate these new scientific insights with Christian faith. That was a task for people more steeped in theology than he.

Give the article a full read, as it is worth it. It seems in the church today that a good number of people are lessening their opposition to Darwin's ideas. Have you noticed this too, and in your mind is it a good shift or a bad shift?

Donald Miller and Some Random Reflections

Donald Miller's writing is always entertaining. His most recent blog article is a collection of thoughts about his new puppy, how simple her life is, and how we could all learn something from the blissful simplicity of her example.

I’ve been watching Lucy (the aforementioned dog) and wondered why God made her. A pet. Just a dog (chocolate lab puppy) that runs and jumps and chews things and, even though we’ve only known each other for a couple weeks, wants nothing more than to please me. She puts on no airs, which is one of the things I think we find so comforting about pets and children. There is no false motive, only the desire to eat, reproduce and play.

I think of that scripture that tells us to not think more of ourselves than we should, and not less of ourselves either. I think if Lucy could understand a hearing of that passage, she’d probably tilt her head and say “what is an I?”….all she knows is her red ball and her weasel chew toy and the fact she can dig her nose into snow to make a tunnel.

And later

I wonder what it was like for humans before the fall of man, to not think too much or too little of themselves, to enjoy play, to enjoy work, to enjoy God. I think the difference between them and us would be startling. If they could come here today and have a conversation with us, my guess is they would sniff out all our motives and wonder why it is we care about so many things that don’t matter at all.

Interesting thoughts.

An Advent Meditation by Rowan Williams

This video, which I found posted by Tony Jones, is an interesting reflection on the season of Advent.



As I continue in my faith, sacramental, liturgical presentations like this one that used to bore me, become rich and enjoyable. What are your thoughts?

Boyd and Kimball on "Religulous"

As you may have heard, Bill Maher has made a movie bashing religion that is now out. I have not seen the movie myself (not yet anyway), but several good thinkers and church leaders have. I thought I'd share some of their thoughts and posts.

Dan Kimball wrote the first response I read about it here. Dan says:

The film was really well done, and it went by very fast. Bill Maher is trying to show how "religion" in general is messed up and even very damaging (which it can be). He tries to make his point in a very, very humorous way. But it also was very predictable in what it covered. I have either listened to or read most of the arguments he made in the film, so what was in the film itself wasn't really new information.

But Bill raised good and legitimate questions but he didn't get good answers from the people he interviewed (again, at least how they edited the film). People in the theater laughed (including me) at how the responses generally came across from Christians to his questions.

He does have some criticisms about the film, however.

Although it was a humorous film, and although it raised great questions which need to be asked - it only showed a very one-sided perspective. Thus, to me it was a poor film journalistically as it misrepresented Christianity by only showing the extremes of it.

Greg Boyd also wrote a review of the film here.

I also have to say that I found myself in agreement with much of Maher’s commentary. While many Christians seem to feel the need to defend religion – at least the Christian religion – from the sort of criticism Maher raises, I think its imperative for followers of Jesus to side with these sorts of criticisms. For the undeniable truth is that religion – including the Christian religion — is often irrational and extremely dangerous.

Fortunately, the kingdom Jesus inaugurated has got nothing to do with religion. Indeed, Jesus’ main opposition came from the guardians of religion, and religion continues to be a main obstacle to the advancement of his kingdom. (For more on this, see my Repenting of Religion). If Maher’s documentary does anything to help people get free of religion, it’s done humanity and the kingdom a great service, in my opinion.

In critique, Greg says:

First, Religulous is utterly devoid of nuances and objectivity. Maher lumps all religion in the same silly and dangerous bucket while never bothering to tell his audience what he means by the term “religion.” One gets the impression that humanity can be divided up into two well defined groups: on the one side you have rational humane people who have no religious beliefs and who simply want to make the world a better place; on the other side you have irrational misanthropic people who have “religious” beliefs and who inhibit progress and threaten the world.

and later...

This brings me to my second, more specific, criticism. Maher provides absolutely no evidence to support his remarkable claim that the Jesus story is a variation of the Horus myth. To his credit, Maher did interview Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome project, about the Gospels (the only educated “religious” person included in the documentary by the way). But Francis Collins is unfortunately an expert in biology, not biblical history. It’s hardly fair to call on him to give a robust defense of the historicity of the Gospels or refutation of the Horus-Jesus theory. (Yet, for all we know, he provided one that was edited out).

The truth is that there are many compelling reasons to conclude that the Gospels are substantially rooted in history, not legend or myth. Paul Eddy and I provide these reasons and argue against all the major Jesus-legend or Jesus-myth theories in The Jesus Legend (Baker, 2007) and (in a much more popular format) in Lord or Legend? (Baker, 2007). Had Maher seriously interacted with this material his documentary would have been much more informative. But it also would have undermined the objective of the film, which was to entertain audiences by making all religion (including faith in Jesus) look silly and dangerous.

What do you think? Have any of you seen the movie? Other than these two blog reviews (on blogs I read regularly) I haven't heard much about it. Has there been a surge against it by the religious right?

Abortion Facts

As it is nearly election time, the hot topic of abortion is in the air (which only seems to be a big deal in election years, interesting). I thought I'd share some interesting facts a ran across about abortion in the US. I'll leave the analysis to you. (Read the original post here).

Abortion Facts

Half of all pregnancies in the United States are unintended.

Almost half of unintended pregnancies end in abortion.

The most frequent reasons given by women seeking an abortion are that a child would limit ability to meet current responsibilities and that they cannot afford a child at this point in their lives.

Unintended pregnancy has increased by 29% among poor women while decreasing 20% among higher-income women.

Women below the federal poverty level have abortion rates almost four times those of higher-income women.

Between 1996 and 2000, while abortion rates for all other groups fell, abortion rates among poor and low-income women increased.

The majority of women having abortions are in their 20s or younger.

Overturning Roe Vs. Wade Will Not End Abortion in America

Overturning Roe Vs. Wade, a long time goal of the pro-life movement, would not end abortion in the United States, it would simply send the decision to the states.

If states with more than 45% "pro-life" sentiment chose to outlaw abortion, this would only impact 16 states accounting for 10% of abortions nationwide, or less than 100,000 abortions a year.

Women in these 16 states would still be able to travel to seek an abortion in another state, or seek an illegal abortion, making the impact likely less than a 10% reduction in abortions nation-wide.

States with the highest abortion rates in the country, like California and New York, would be unlikely to outlaw abortion in their states.

Studies Show that Economic Support for Women and Families Reduces Abortion

In a recent study released by Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good finds that social and economic supports such as benefits for pregnant women and mothers and economic assistance to low-income families have contributed significantly to reducing the number of abortions in the United States over the past twenty years.

Economic assistance to low income families is correlated with a 20% lower abortion rate. Across the entire United States, this translates into 200,000 fewer abortions.

In the 1990s, states with more generous grants to women, infants and children under the age of five as provided by the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program had a 37% lower abortion rate.

Higher male employment in the 1990s was associated with a 29% lower abortion rate.

The abortion rate has declined most rapidly from 1990-1996 when there was an economic boom under President Clinton. While rates have continued to decrease, they have declined less rapidly in recent years when poverty rates have been climbing.

Legal Status of Abortion Does Not Necessarily Impact Abortion Rates

Nearly half of all abortions in the world are performed in countries that have made abortion illegal.

The lowest abortion rates in the world - less than 10 per 1,000 women of reproductive age - are in Europe, where abortion is legal and available.

By contrast, in Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean, where abortion law is most restrictive, the regional rates are 29 and 31 per 1,000 women, respectively.

These countries are also much poorer than the U.S. and provide fewer social services; and a larger proportion of their population lives in poverty.

In Western European countries, in contrast, where more social services are provided and fewer women live in poverty, the abortion rates are consistently the lowest rates in the world.

Source: Joseph Wright and Michael Bailey, "Reducing Abortion in America : The Effect of Economic and Social Supports" (Catholics in Alliance for the Common Good) and The Guttmacher Institute "An Overview of Abortion in The United States"

A Letter to the Church in the United States

Here is a letter, apparently written by a group of leaders from the southern part of the world to9 American church. What do you think? (HT Brian McLaren)


August, 2008

TO THE CHURCH IN THE UNITED STATES

As the Church of the Lord in what is known as the "Southern" part of the world, moved by the Holy Spirit to fight for the abundant life that Jesus Christ offers, we address our Christian family in the United States, a Church of the same covenant, faith and love. Grace and Peace to all of our brothers and sisters.

We know your works of love; these works have allowed millions of human beings for many generations in our countries in the South to receive the gospel, the Grace of Jesus Christ and the power of His Salvation. The U.S. church's untiring missionary effort planted in our lands Hope in Him who came to reconcile EVERYTHING.

Nevertheless, the political, social and economic situation in the places where this hope has been announced is increasingly distressing. Millions of people in the global South are dying of hunger, violence and injustice. These situations of poverty and pain are not simply the product of the internal functions of our countries; rather they are the results of the international policies of the governments that wield global power.

Therefore, we have this against you, brothers and sisters, that along with this powerful announcing of the Gospel, the Church from the United States has not also raised its voice in protest against the injustices that powerful governments and institutions are inflicting on the global South - injustices that afflict the lives and ecosystems of millions of people who, centuries after the proclamation of the Gospel, still have not seen the sweat of their brow turned into bread.

The worsening inequality and poverty in the South is alarming. Seven years since the United States and 191 other nations publicly promised to cut extreme global poverty in half by the year 2015 through the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), your country has made only a little progress towards fulfilling its commitments.

The MDGs should stir us to action because they echo the calls of the biblical prophets for justice and equity. Further, they are achievable and measurable markers on the roadmap to end extreme global poverty.

And so we ask you as sisters and brothers, citizens of the wealthiest most powerful nation on earth, to publicly challenge your candidates and political leaders - now and after the elections are over - to lead the world in the struggle to cut global poverty in half by 2015. If you who know the Truth will not speak for us who will?

The Church in the United States has the opportunity today to be faithful to the Hope that it preaches. We urge you to remember that the Hope to which you were called as a messenger demands that you seek first the Kingdom of God and God's justice.

Out of love for us, the global Church, in holiness, use your citizenship responsibly for the benefit of the entire world; it is for this very reason that the Lord poured out His life on the Cross.

All who have ears, let them hear what the Lord says to His Church.

Doug Pagitt on "Emerging Church" vs "Emergence"

Doug Pagitt has posted this interesting commentary video on the buzz that has been being made about the terms "Emergent Church" and others like it.

Donald Miller on "The Culture War"

Donald Miller has posted some interesting musings on his blog about media and tension and spin. There was one part I found fascinating.

Watching Hurricane Ike come in (the storm went over my home and family in Houston) you would have thought it was the end of the world. The city of Galveston sent out an alert saying all those who did not evacuate the island faced certain death. More than twenty-thousand people stayed, and nobody died. There were six deaths in Texas related to the storm, which was a decrease from how many people would have died that night were there to have been no storm. All those cars off the streets proved safer than a storm serge and one-hundred-mile-per-hour winds. (This is not to invalidate the devastation caused by the storm, which was severe and tragic) But the media ran with the story because, perhaps, tension keeps us watching. And now that the country can be called to help out in Galveston, the media has moved on to other areas in which it can create tension and sell more advertising.

Thoughts?

Brian McLaren on September 11th

Since 7 years ago today was when the terroristic events happened against the World Trade Center and other buildings, I thought this video was a good way to remember and to re-calibrate our minds as to how we treat our Muslim neighbors as we move forward. This video was first posted at Emergent Village.



Thoughts?

Doug Pagitt on ACWB, Videos 6 and 7

It has been a while since I posted one of these, but here are the next two in this series of videos that Doug is using to promote his book. Doug listed these as videos 7 and 8, but I'm pretty sure they are numbers 6 and 7. The topics are "Jesus" and "Heaven".


Video 6



Video 7

A Historical Perspective on the Economy

Sorry that the posts have been so political lately. But, when in Rome, right?

Scott McKnight linked to a very interesting article that looks historically (since WW2) at how the economy has done under Republicans vs Democrats. What would you guess the results are?

The article rates the parties on two categories: 1) average annual gross national product (i.e. what percentage more does the average person make after a year) and the second is 2) a look at the effect on income inequality (i.e. the rich get richer and the poor get poorer).

The stark contrast between the whiz-bang Clinton years and the dreary Bush years is familiar because it is so recent. But while it is extreme, it is not atypical. Data for the whole period from 1948 to 2007, during which Republicans occupied the White House for 34 years and Democrats for 26, show average annual growth of real gross national product of 1.64 percent per capita under Republican presidents versus 2.78 percent under Democrats.

That 1.14-point difference, if maintained for eight years, would yield 9.33 percent more income per person, which is a lot more than almost anyone can expect from a tax cut.

Pretty significant.

It is well known that income inequality in the United States has been on the rise for about 30 years now — an unsettling development that has finally touched the public consciousness. But Professor Bartels unearths a stunning statistical regularity: Over the entire 60-year period, income inequality trended substantially upward under Republican presidents but slightly downward under Democrats, thus accounting for the widening income gaps over all. And the bad news for America’s poor is that Republicans have won five of the seven elections going back to 1980.

Thus, it seems from the evidence that the economy sees greater health and fruit when a Democrat is in office than when a Republican is.

Here is where I want to go with this: I have a friend who anytime we talk about the thriving economy under Clinton and the struggling economy under Bush, he attributes Clinton's success to Regan's work and Bush's failure to Clinton. He, of course, is extremely Republican. This study seems to refute that thinking, doesn't it? I mean a patters on "misattribution" could not continue for 70 years, could it?

Thoughts?

Doug Pagitt on Sarah Palin's Speech

Here is an interesting and funny perspective on Sarah Palin's speech at the Republican National Convention by Doug Pagitt. You can find more stuff like this at Doug's blog.



Thoughts?

Voting for the President

A reader on Scot McKnight's Jesus Creed blog sent in a letter asking about the upcoming election. He admitted he was torn on who to vote for. Among other things, he says:

Does placing “no confidence in redemption by way of politics” justify a least-of-two-evils vote in November? Does voting for a candidate who I know will support immoral policies not implicate me with those policies? Would it be better to conscientiously abstain from voting? Or is that simply a moralistic cop-out? Should I perhaps consider voting for one of the “protest candidates” like Ron Paul, who I know won’t win but still allows me to do my “duty” to vote?

Scot responded saying a number of things. Here is a taste.

On November 4 I will vote; in the evening Kris and I will watch the TV as it enters into the lather of not only reporting news but making the news.

More importantly, on November 5 I will get up and go about my business no matter who gets elected. There will be people who need to hear about Jesus; there will be people who are suffering from systemic injustices; there will be people abusing power; there will be good reasons to drink coffee and eat lunch with colleagues and prepare dinner and go for a walk with Kris before supper. Changing Presidents will not end those needs and those problems and those parts of my life. So, my task as a Christian is to follow Jesus by loving God and loving others as well as I can. Changing Presidents won’t change that one bit. I don’t see that either candidate has the intent of depriving us of these things.

He goes on to say:

Now one more way of saying this: my eschatology, or my hope, is not in who will be the next President. I hope in the power of the gospel that flows from God’s good graces toward us humans. I hope in the God who designs that gospel; I hope in the Christ who embodies that gospel; and I hope in the Spirit who empowers that gospel. And I hope also in the Church whose task it is daily to live out the gospel and draw all into its saving graces. I don’t hope in the next President. I think that is idolatrous. In fact, hoping in the next President is the first step toward idolizing empire.

So my friend, I approach this election as a Christian who finds it important, significant, and incredibly fascinating, but who also finds it not as important as the task Jesus has given to us as his followers.

I think he makes some good points. I think voting is good, and I plan too. But may we remember that our hope does not lie in whomever gets elected on November 4th. The reason this is important is because many in our nation pretend that the future of our civilization depends on this election (as they do for all elections). May we strike a good balance of seeing voting as a good right, but not as our hope for the future.

Donald Miller's Blog

Donald Miller officially has a blog site now. He had had a website, where you could order his books and he would leave notes and stuff. But this new blog is more interactive, where readers are able to leave comments. His first entry is sharing a series of emails he exchanged with Barrack Obama which is some crazy funny stuff. Check it out.

How did you get my e-mail address? I signed up on a clip board a cute hippie handed me, did you get my address from her? Do you know her? Can you ask her to call me? Anyway, no biggie, just cool that you wrote.

I wanted to talk to you after the rally but the guy with the curly earphones said you were busy. As for your e-mail, I don’t remember saying “the time has come to get beyond the same old tactics that divide and distract us,” but that’s exactly how I feel. I say a lot of things I don’t remember. My roommate Jordan said I said he could eat my leftover calzone from Pizzicatta but I don’t remember saying that and I know I was planning on having it for breakfast the next day.

There is a lot more, and all of Don's responses are in the classic Donald Miller smart aleck form. Quite a way to talk to a presidential candidate.

A Commission to Students

Tyler Priest of the Priesthood and Emergent Village have posted A Blessing and Commission for Students. I always liked August and September in student ministry. Though the students were always dreading school starting back up and the summer coming to an end, there was great energy that came with the fall. We were always able to launch fun new series'. Our programming was high. Our attendance was high. It was a fun time! It is perhaps unfortunate the the lives of adults can't have more scheduled ups and downs. Anyway, without further ado, for all of the students out there, or any of us adults who have a soft spot in our hearts for students, here is a commission.

as you start this new year of school, we send you out with our blessings. we want you to know that along with God, we are walking with you. you are not alone. you belong to God, and we belong to each other.

when you walk down the halls, remember that we are on mission together with Jesus. in the midst of friendships, classes, games, performances, and events, may you remember that we are sent to bring heaven to earth, to be salt that heals and light that pierces darkness.

so go out, befriend the lonely and hurting, give hope to the hopeless, rise above the popularity contests that have trapped so many. give your best effort in the classroom, always seek the truth, ask hard questions, and never settle for easy answers. take every though captive and make it obedient to the way of Christ.

go and have fun. live lightly and enjoy this year. don’t spend too much time looking forward to next semester or next year or even next week. live in the now. do not worry. because of Christ, you are free to be your true self, the self you were created to be.

when you’re tempted, remember that there is always a way out. don’t crumble to peer pressure. instead, may you find that nothing will satisfy you—absolutely nothing will satisfy you—unless it is a gift from God. so may you have the wisdom to discern that which is from God and that which is not. and may you have the courage to live out that wisdom.

we send you out with the prayer that as you move about campus, you will carry deep in your heart the undying fire for our King and his kingdom. in this school year, may it be the kingdom that you seek first, that you hope for, and work for, above everything else. amen.

A Philosophical Review of The Dark Knight

If you have not seen the new Batman movie The Dark Knight, you really should. It is definitely worth seeing in the theater. Heath Ledger plays an outstanding Joker and steals the show from nearly the first scene.

Many have already seen and loved this movie. Among those is Greg Boyd, who offer a philosophical review of the movie. Check it out here (WARNING: Spoiler Alert!!!). You can also check out Greg's new website here. Greg's thoughts on the movie are profound.

Here's a taste.

The Dark Knight brilliantly explores the nature of order and chaos. The Joker is a Nietzscheian ubermensch (superman) who lives in a mindless, immoral, chaotic world. He believes order (e.g. societal rules, ethics) amounts to nothing more than artificial constraints cowardly people impose on reality. He exists to expose the joke of our pseudo-orderly world.

And Later.

Along the same lines, The Dark Knight ingeniously explores how easy it is to become the evil that we fight. The Chief Commissioner (Harvey) initially is an uncompromising selfless hero who wants to rid Gotham City of its criminals. But as he suffers personal losses at the hands of evil he is slowly transformed into evil. Instead of overcoming evil with good — which Batman sort of does — he is overcome by evil. He comes to agree with the Joker that anarchy is the most fundamental reality. Hence he believes all order is ultimately futile.

Give it a read and share your thoughts.