Monthy Archive: January 2008
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January 01, 2008

Life : Resolute

I don’t do New Year’s resolutions in the traditional sense (promising that I will/won’t do specific things in the coming year); but I do often take the opportunity at the start of a new year to think about those things I’d like, The Lord willing, to focus on in the coming days.

This year there are two things I’d like to focus on.

The first is one I have already started – getting my backlog of books cut down to size. That involves both making the time to read more and being more disciplined in how many books I purchase. Neither of these should be difficult most of the time, and I don’t plan to worry about the occasional exceptions. For instance, Anne and I may return to London in the fall of 2008, and I’ll certainly purchase a number of books while there - even though there are several books still on my “to be read” shelf that I purchased on our last London trip – three years ago. There are just too many places in London to find books that are not readily available in the USA to worry about the impact it will have on my count.

The other area of focus is to take a realistic look at the various “dreams” I have had and decide which I am really going to pursue and which I should discard. I no longer think it is feasible to do all the things “I have always wanted to do”, and making a conscious decision to discard some of these is another form of simplification of my life which will increase my chance at getting to the others.

The list of dreams to consider includes:

- Game Development. I have a large file of game ideas (both computer and board games) I have thought up over the years hoping that someday I’d have the chance to develop them. Will I ever get to them? What am I willing to give up to make the time? At a minimum, perhaps I should look through the list and pick out a few that I want to keep and abandon the rest. I have been thinking about posting the ones I discard to my blog in case someone else wants to pick them up.

- Computer Simulations. I have a smaller list of things I have always wanted to program. Some of these started as part of a game idea; but I became more interested in the question of “how would I simulate that” than the game itself. Others have interesting applications which might be profitable if successful. I justify a couple of shelves of programming books I keep in my office under the guise that I’ll need the books if I ever get around to any of these projects; but I haven’t actually written any code for any of them in over 5 years. Hmmm

- Fiction Writing. I deliberately set this aside over a year ago because I didn’t feel I had anything to write that I would actually recommend if it was written by someone else. My ideas were entertaining; but I didn’t feel that entertainment alone was worth the investment it would take to finish one of my ideas. I’m still mulling over this quandary.

- Non-Fiction Writing. In this blog at least, I seem to be able to produce a fair amount of non-fiction content; and as I have been blogging I have started to get some ideas of books I might want to write. Should I set aside the time to work though one of these projects?

There are a few others; but those are the big ones that I want to prioritize and hopefully make some decisions on this year.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 02, 2008

Thoughts : Science Fiction vs. Fantasy

One of the easiest arguments to instigate at WorldCon (the World Science Fiction Convention) is the question: “How do you distinguish between Science Fiction vs. Fantasy?” Most book stores don’t even bother making the distinction – lumping all of the books together in one section. Is the distinction even useful or meaningful? Having read several Neil Gaiman “fantasy” stories last week, I started thinking of this question in the context of why I enjoy Neil’s work and not a lot of other modern fantasy.

The classic definitions that most people use follow the form that Arthur C. Clarke employs: “Science fiction is something that could happen – but usually you wouldn’t want it to. Fantasy is something that couldn’t happen – though you often wish it would.” The operative part of that definition being that if a story could in theory happen at some point in the future (or have happened at some point in the past), then it is science fiction because it is grounded in real-world science. If the story could not possibly happen because it violates some law of nature, then it is fantasy.

The problem with that definition is that it classifies almost everything as “fantasy”. Have a story about space ships traveling between stars faster than the speed of light? Fantasy (physics says it can’t happen). Teleportation? Fantasy. Time Travel? Probably Fantasy. In fact most of the classic “Sci Fi” tropes are all now known to be physically impossible, so you’d have to classify all of those stories as Fantasy. What’s more, this definition means that many stories are one scientific discovery away from being reclassified. There are stories that would have been determined to be Science Fiction when they were written; but new science has since proved them to be impossible. Likewise someone could always discover a new level of physics that enables one of these “impossibilities” under certain conditions. Not a very useful definition in my opinion.

All this led me to take a different approach. I started to think about the Science Fiction and Fantasy stories I really liked – what made “good” SciFi vs. what made “good” fantasy. I came up with a different definition, one that actually capitalizes on the other part of Clarke’s definition – the “you wouldn’t want it to”/“wish it would” part.

It is often said that “Science Fiction is the Literature of ideas”, and I think that cuts closer to the truth. Good Science Fiction makes the reader think. It asks questions. What would it be like if. . .? Would you still think that if. . .? What would happen if. . .? Science Fiction is written to engage the reader’s brain and to get them thinking about some issue. The actual science in the stories really only exists to help us suspend disbelief as we read. A story would not be effective at making us think if our first thoughts are always “that could never happen”, so enough of an explanation need to be given to get us past that and on to the real issues presented.

Then what about Fantasy? The fantasy stories I like the most are those that engage my heart. They make me feel something – hope, joy, fear, wonder, compassion, and so on. This is why fantasy stories can just use explanations like “it’s magic” because what you think about the story isn’t important. What matters is how it makes you feel. It doesn’t ask how you feel about something, it makes you feel something.

So to me, Science Fiction is Literature of the Mind. It uses artificial scenarios to make the reader think about something. Fantasy is Literature of the Heart. It uses artificial scenarios to make the reader feel something.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

January 03, 2008

Faith : Someone else “Doing It”

“Letters from Kamp Krusty” is a very real (i.e. “warts and all”) blog by a fellow Jesus Follower. Brant (the author) stopped “going to church” a year ago and posted last week on how that has worked out. Essentially he has been doing the kind of thing I have been talking about. The post can be found here; but here are a few excerpts follow for those too lazy to follow the link:

We started getting together with a couple other families, at least twice a week. They'd been meeting for some time, in different forms. We ate dinner together on, say, Wednesday, and we had a time devoted to praying and singing and listening and discussing on Sunday afternoon, followed by some more eating.

Another friend joined here, another family-just-met there, and now there's fifty-plus. Our Sunday thing grew so large, it made it daunting for everyone to be involved. We've birthed a couple other gathering opportunities in other homes, including ours. We also still get together for a big meal/party late Sunday afternoon.
And we stay in touch via a Yahoo group, plus many informal get-togethers and help-each-others.
. . .

There is no master plan, and no Giant Vision. We do not have 501c3 status, though there's nothing wrong with that, and we don't take up a collection, except when there's a need, and there have been several.
. . .

There are several leaders, to varying degrees. If any of them go on an ego trip, they will be rebuked...after everyone stops laughing. One of our leaders, Mike, says leaders shouldn't be viewed glamorously, as the "eyes" or the "head" of the church. Instead, the spleen or small intestine come to mind: Absolutely not glamorous. Often unseen. And completely, without question, unarguably, necessary.

Our gatherings are heavy on laughing. And -- get this -- teaching. No one "planned" this, but our back-porch conversations are invariably challenging and provocative. When you hang out and do things with Kingdom people, you will learn. You can't avoid it.

It's another odd thing this past year: I've sat through no sermons. I've learned more about Jesus, and more about the Bible, oddly enough, than ever before. I'm thinking in new ways; ways that have me seeing the forest, rather than mere trees. I know many in our group would second that.

Brant has 53 comments on the post last time I checked and they are also worth reading - even those that take the opposite side (one of the rare cases so far that people have managed to disagree without becoming obnoxious). Again, and excert from one of Brant's replies in the comments:

There IS, again, authoritative teaching in our church. You don't have to do it lecture-style, folks. In fact, it's arguably *more* authoritative, when the teaching comes from someone you know and respect, directed to you, in actual conversation.

(Wondering what's more authoritative to a man: A guy teaching, lecture-style, to a big group of men, women, and children, because he went to Bible College, or two or three men, sitting with you in your living room, saying, "Here's what needs to happen...")
. . .
You write: "I just think it's hard to make a case Biblically (I would love to hear one) for some kind of a teaching free for all. 'Anyone who has a word, come and bring it!'"

Not hard. It's in Paul's very explicit instructions for the Corinthians. He says "When you come together, everyone has a hymn, a word of instruction..." in I Cor 14.

We don't have a "free for all" in the least. Quite the opposite: If someone says something that's opposed to scripture, it's a sure thing someone will pipe up. This is in stark contrast to the churches I grew up in, where the instructor will go unchallenged, because it's lecture-format. I watch TV preachers, in front of thousands, misuse scriptures without a peep from the crowd. That's a free-for-all, though it meets someone's idea of the authority test.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 04, 2008

Life : Cooking Classes

A few years back there was a cooking store around here called “Home Chef” that sold high end cooking equipment and ingredients. The centerpiece of the store however was their cooking classes which were held several times a day. They had a series of ten classes for all the basics, and the numerous (and often seasonal) classes on various other cuisines and techniques. Most of the classes were demonstrations, although a few were hands-on lessons. All of the classes allowed you to eat what was cooked.

Anne and I took several of these classes together as “dates” and we had a lot of fun. They added a bit of variety to the standard “let’s go out together” activities like movies, concerts, and eating in restaurants. Plus we learned something that we could apply afterwards.

Unfortunately Home Chef eventually closed down and so we’ve been doing without for a while; but tonight we finally tried one of the classes at the local “Whole Foods” grocery store - a chain that focuses on organic, sustainable, and otherwise less-processed foods. They aren’t strictly “health foods” (they serve beer braised lamb shanks in their deli); but tend to sell stuff with fewer chemicals. They do however have nightly classes on a variety of topics, and we’ve been looking for one to try.

Last night we finally tried one – a class on Moroccan cuisine (one of our favorite kinds of food). Frankly it was a mixed bag; but I am hopeful enough to try more. The chef/instructor was good and the food was excellent. The problem was that the class was a late addition to the schedule and the chef was not the one to prepare the menu and recipes and unfortunately both were flawed. One dish would have taken 4-5 hours to prepare (the class was only 2 1/2 hours), and two others had clear errors in the recipe. In the end the chef ended up preparing only two of the four promised dishes – doing substitutes for the other two.

Still we enjoyed it enough that we plan to try another class there.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 07, 2008

Books : Books 2008/01/07

Current count of books pending to be read: 138
Three boks read, none purchased (well, none delieverd. I did place an order at Amazon this week, so next week is likely tobe a "step back".

Books finished this week:

The Religion War

by Scott Adams

This is a sequel of sorts to Scott “Dibert” Adams first philosophy book “God’s Debris”, although more narrative and less dialog-based than the first book. Both books are entertaining, thought-provoking and worth reading. I don’t agree with Adams conclusions; but he himself acknowledges that there are flaws in his logic – but leaves it as a challenge to the reader to discover them.

Personally I enjoyed “God’s Debris” more. The use of a definite plot in “The Religion War”, while making the book more entertaining, distracted significantly from the philosophical points he was making in my opinion. The conclusion also seemed rather rushed.

iWoz: From Computer Geek to Cult Icon: How I Invented the Personal Computer, Co-Founded Apple, and Had Fun Doing It

by Steve Wozniak and Gina Smith

Having worked in the personal computer industry for a fair chunk of my career (including 7 years at Apple), there aren’t many “Woz” stories I haven’t heard before; but the pleasure of reading his autobiography was how well his playful and curious personality comes through. It also served to remind me of some facts that are often forgotten (like the fact that Woz is actually more than 4 years older than Steve Jobs).

In War Times

by Kathleen Ann Goonan

The author of this Sci-Fi novel made some very interesting choices. For the first two-thirds of the book the Sci-Fi aspects of the story are relegated to a “B-Plot”. The bulk of book is the story of an American G.I. (based on the author’s father) during World War II and afterwards. The “device” that makes this novel Science Fiction is introduced in the first chapter; but it remains in the background of the story until near the end. Once it does come to the front, it ends up being a confusing mix of quantum mechanics and Zen philosophy which made it hard for me to suspend disbelief and ask the questions I think the author was posing.

Computer Games Played: World In Conflict
DVDs Watched: Blade Runner ("Final" cut and extras), BtVS S4D6, AtS S1D1-3

Next Book:Einstien's Cosmos

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

January 08, 2008

Thoughts : Freedom Of, Freedom From

I’ve written about this before; but it remains the largest gap in my personal political theory and it concerns me since I can’t be sure that the rest of my views are consistent without coming to some conclusion on this. Fundamentally, I believe that governments have a responsibility to ensure personal freedoms. Consenting adults should be allowed to do whatever they want in the privacy of their own homes. As a Christian, my faith imposes additional limits on my own behavior; but I do not think that it is the government’s role to enforce such limits in other people who do not share my beliefs.

Now in terms of political theory the concept of “consenting adults” seems fairly clear to me. Where this gets interesting is when things move out of “the privacy of their own homes”. What should people be allowed to do in public? What happens when someone’s freedom to do something encounters someone else’s freedom to not be exposed to something? And, more critically, when does it become a government’s role to enforce any limits on such interactions? I have been thinking about this question for years and still have no model that consistently gives the answers I’d expect – I always seem to be able to come up with scenarios that produce undesirable results.

To make this more concrete, here are some of the kinds of scenarios I have been looking at:

- Does someone have a right to walk down a typical street (perhaps with their children) and not see people engaged in sexual intercourse in public?

- Does a Muslim man have a right to walk down a typical street and not see women with their hair, arms, or legs uncovered?

- Does an atheist have the right to walk down a typical street in December and not be exposed to Christmas decorations and greetings?

- Does a voting citizen have the right to not be exposed to political views they do not agree with?

I’ve come up with a lot of these scenarios over these years (many more than I can list here). I know what answer’s I’d like to get for each of them and the degree to which I think the government should be involved in enforcing things; but I have yet to come up with a model – a set of simple guiding principles - that consistently gives the answers I want. Until I have such a model my concern is that, perhaps, my fundamental perspective on freedom may be internally inconsistent and therefore flawed.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (6)

January 09, 2008

Faith : On Prayer

I have come to realize that when I was a young Christian, I had a lot of bad examples around me of how to pray. First there were the many people who, when praying in public, would clearly speak more to those where were assembled and not to God. They would make grand speeches that drew attention to themselves, and actually said little of note to God in the process. Second, there were those whose prayers were full of logic and legal arguments as to why it was in God's best interest to do what the person wanted. They acted as if they understood what was required better than God and therefore they needed to set Him straight on the subject. Finally, there was the phrase which everyone used at the end of their prayers: "In the name of Jesus" as if it was a magic incantation which could be used to force God to do our bidding.

My own understanding of prayer has taken a long time to develop, and I confess to being guilty of these and many other failures in my prayer life over the years. There have been many lessons I have learned over the years, and often the lessons have been interdependent with each other so that having made process on one, I'd need to go back and learn to appreciate a previous lesson more deeply. I find this process has made writing a clear essay on the subject of prayer quite difficult; but I will do my best.

Let me start by saying, I believe prayer is supposed to be a conversation with God, not a speech delivered to him. Too often when I was young I would pray by rattling off numerous requests, and as soon as I ran out of things to say I would walk away, thinking my prayer was finished. Only later did I begin to understand that if I waited, if I stayed quiet in his presence, he would communicate to me.

As a conversation, prayer is not fundamentally about asking for things, it is about relationship building - you and God getting to know each other. As an analogy - most of the shops and restaurants I go to, my only conversations with the staff are focused on getting stuff – I ask them for things, and hopefully they try to deliver; but there is no relationship developed. There are however a few places where I go often enough that I am on a first-name basis with the staff. While I still place my order, the bulk of the conversations about other things – travel, hobbies, etc. As a result, I have a relationship with the people at these places. I believe God desperately wants people's prayer lives to be more like that – more conversation about life and less asking for things.

Nonetheless, requests are still a part of my prayer life; but even that aspect has changed over the years. I think every Christian eventually reaches the point where they ask: If God already knows not only what I want; but what I actually need, then why do I need to ask him for anything at all? Why doesn't he just give me what I need? The answer is that he wants us to understand that he is the one giving it. If things "just happen", then people might attribute them to anything or anyone – there's no reason to think God is responsible since he was never involved in the process. On the other hand, if you ask God for something and then he provides it, the connection between request and provider can be made.

That connection can be made if God reliably answers prayers; but most people's experience is that he doesn't. So why is that? The answer is in James 4:3 "When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures." Putting it more gently, there is often a difference between what we want and what we need; and God isn't interested in providing what we want when it isn't also what we need. So the question then becomes – how do we know what we need to ask God for it? Again, James has the answer: "If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault." We need to ask God to tell us what we need, listen to what he says, and then ask for it in prayer. That simple statement is what has revolutionized my prayer life.

When I have a need, where I start is by telling God how I feel. I'm scared, I'm confused, I want something, I want out of something. Whatever I am feeling, I tell God without actually asking him to do anything. I know none of this is news to God (he already knows it); but my experience is that I can't calm down enough to listen to God until I get all that off of my chest. Then when I have finally finished expressing all of my issues, I ask God "How do you want me to pray about this?" Then I listen and wait and see what God says. Quite reliably, I come to understand how God wants me to pray in the situation, and I pray it. The way he directs me to pray is often not what I would have expected (and sometime isn't actually what I want); but I trust his judgment on what is best. So I pray what God wants me to pray, and I find that those prayers do get answered, reliably.

Which brings me to the magic phrase: "In the name of Jesus." The real meaning of that phrase in the original culture was that you were claiming to speak as a representative of Jesus with his full authority – that the words you were speaking were the ones Jesus would have spoken if he was there. But here's the catch – just adding those words at the end of a prayer doesn't make it so. You can only honestly claim to "ask in the name of Jesus" if you know in fact that what you are asking is in fact what he wants. So there's no point using that phrase unless you have first listened to Jesus and know what he wants. Again, prayer that does not include listening is pointless.

By the way - the same principle applies when I am asked to pray in a public situation. I always pause and ask God what he wants me to pray publicly, wait for an answer (with a few "thank you God's" to cover the silence), and then I pray what he directs me to pray. The results tend to be short, and often lack the flowery speech or rhetorical excellence of the prayers I heard in my youth; but that's OK – I know God will actually answer these prayers.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 10, 2008

GameIdeas , Life : Game Design and I

Game design has always been an important part of my life. I designed my first game when I was about 9 years old, and by the time I was 12 (often in collaboration with my friend Peter) I had developed a dozen or so games of different styles – including one “sport”. As a professional, I worked for several years as a video game developer and later consulted with a couple of other development companies on their projects (look for “additional programming by” credits), and I’ve been a regular beta tester for several companies through the years.

While it has been quite a while since I have done any game work professionally, I have always kept alive the idea that I might eventually get back into the business. As part of that I have maintained a file of various game ideas I have thought about over the years. Some of these are board games, others are computer games, and a few are online/email games. For some I have only managed to produce short concept statements while others I have extensive notes and mathematical models.

These past few months, sorting through the physical and intellectual baggage of my life, I have come to the conclusion that the probability that I will ever get back into game design is fairly small. There are just too many other things I want to do more to believe I will ever have the free time to invest in this. Given that, I can free up some space on my bookshelves by punting several books I have on game development (certainly the computer game books are now obsolete given new technologies) – but what to do about all of my ideas?

The decision I made over the holiday break is that I would start posting the ideas here and making them freely available to anyone who finds something useful. As per the license for this web site, all I ask is that I be given credit in any resulting products. I know the list of regular readers of this blog is small and they are equally unlikely to use the ideas; but someone may stumble here by Google or other search engine. So expect another category of post to be added soon – game ideas. There are a couple of ideas I plan to hold back for now (I’m not yet willing to completely let go of the dream of doing games again); but any of the rest that I still think are worthwhile will get posted here.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

January 11, 2008

GameIdeas : Election Game

(long, but I hope good).

Four years ago I was listening to some political strategist talk about strategy using phrases like "repositioning the opponent", "moving voters towards your position" and the like and the core of an idea for a game started to gel. While there are a fair number of games out there that deal with US presidential elections, all of them try to simulate the actual election process. My sense however is that political strategists play the game at a different level – one which is somewhat obscured by focusing too much on states and primaries, so I started to build a game that worked how I heard people actually talk about politics.

I started out with a fairly simple board game with a hexagonal grid in the shape of a hexagon so there are 6 sides, each of which had a color (so I could talk about moving a piece in the direction of the blue side). There were two kinds of playing pieces – large pieces that represent the candidates and smaller pieces that represented the voters. The voters were initially distributed over the board (several per space), and the players (candidates) could pick their initial positions.

In the first version, the game was played in a series of rounds where players could take three actions each round from the list: raise funds, try to move your candidate (change/clarify your candidates "position"), try to move another candidate towards an edge (portray them as too "liberal" or whatever), or try to move voters either towards yourself or towards and edge (the latter was easier). All of the actions other than "raise funds" required you to spend money and the more money you spent the more effective it was. When a fixed number of rounds were done, players would grab the voters who were closer to their candidate than any other candidate (with ties split), and the one with the most voters won.

The result was interesting and even a bit fun (although overwhelmingly so). I found it interesting that the "polarize the electorate" strategy turned out to be how to win and that players who tried to use a "moderate" strategy tended to loose since everyone else tended to work to move voters toward one edge or another. The two biggest weaknesses were the final election process – I use too simple of a mechanism (easy to play; but it gave odd results) – and that I had removed too much of the "color" of elections (issues, constituencies, etc.) so the strategy turned out to be too simple to be fun.

I attacked the final election process first. For each voter you determined who they voted for by counting the distance to each candidate and adding a die roll. Whoever got the low total won. That way you tended to get the people who were closer to you but could still attract some people who were technically closer to another candidate. In the original model, if you had three candidates who were next to each other on the board, the middle one would get almost no votes. Now they would tend to split the votes evenly. The cost of these changes was that the final vote process was tedious.

To combat that (and reflect reality better), I also added the concept of voters committing to specific candidates in earlier rounds (so that only uncommitted voters needed to be tallied at the end). To do this I added more actions that the player could take in their round: try to get voters to commit to you (by ads, speeches, etc.) where success was determined in part by their distance from you, and try to get voters to un-commit to another candidate (negative ads, etc). I used markers on the board to show what voters had committed to what candidates.

At this point I played a couple games and liked the results so far (although it still lacked color); but started to get concerned that the number of playing pieces and the work on the final vote might make this impractical as a board game. So while I continued to design it so that it could be implemented as a board game, I began to suspect that it would do better as a computer game and started to think about that too.

Next I tackled "color".

First I added the concept of constituencies. Voters now came in several types (designated by shapes – circle, square, X, triangle), and most actions now came in two flavors – general or constituency. So you could do a general fund raiser or try to raise funds from a specific constituency. You could try to get anyone to commit to you or focus on a specific constituency. Constituencies were defined by the number of voters they had, the likelihood of them voting, their wealth, and how important the various "issues" (see below) were to them. There were variable settings maintained on a side-display so you could have different "political terrain" when you played it different times.

Next I added the concept of "issues" (which I identified by letters - "A", "B", "C", etc.). Constituencies were rated by how much they cared about each issue, from -5 (they strongly oppose it) to +5 (they strongly supported it). Candidates were also rated for their stance on specific issues. Along with this there were additional actions player could take in their rounds to try to change how constituencies cared about issues and to influence them to commit to you based on your stance on an issue. Some issues were color (board edge) related, so it was easier/harder to influence people based on those issues depending on where they (or the candidate was) on the board).

Finally I added cards to represent both actions and significant events in the campaign. Every player could keep at least 4 cards in their hand; but could buy additional cards. Any card could be played in one of four ways: 1) as a fund raiser (although some cards raised more money than others), 2) as a subset of the speech/advertisement actions (each card allowed a different set), 3) as an event (which tended to mix things up a bit – suddenly making a given issue more important to some constituency or moving voters on the board) or 4) as a response. Responses were actions that allowed you to react to other players. So when a player tried to get voters to commit to them on some issue, certain cards would allow you to respond to that by attracting people who took the opposite view. Certain cards would advance the turn track no matter how they were played.

Players would go around the table playing one card as a fund raiser, a speech/ad, or an event. As they played their card and resolved the event, the other player could each play one response card to respond. The player whose round it was would then draw one card to replace the one they had played, or draw their hand up to 4 cards if it was less. What this means is that response cards are not automatically or immediately replaced. If you paid for 4 extra cards (a hand of 8) but played 5 responses plus a 6th card for your round, you'd get to draw back up 4, not 8 unless you purchased more extra cards.

And that's essentially where I left the design – I was working on a list of cards to use before my next play through when I got distracted with whatever drew my attention next.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

January 14, 2008

Books : Books 2008/01/14

Current count of books pending to be read: 136
Read four books, purchased one, and was given one to read

Books finished this week:

Pagan Christianity: Exploring the Roots of Our Church Practices

by Frank Viola

I am going to take a whole blog post to talk about this book; but in brief: If you find the ideas I have presented on how to do church interesting; but find yourself too comfortable with how things have “always been done” to embrace such a radical change READ THIS BOOK. Note this is a revised edition of a book that was originally written by Frank Viola alone and published in 2003. If you read it, make sure you read new version, published in 2008 with both Viola and Barna listed as authors (I’ll explain why in my post).

Stephanie Pearl-McPhee Casts Off: The Yarn Harlot's Guide to the Land of Knitting

by Stephanie Pearl-McPhee

When Anne and I were dating, I had her read Steven Levy’s book “Hackers” to give her some sense of the computer software culture that is one of the influences on who I am. Anne has now returned the favor by having me read this book about knitting culture (which she has embraced over the last couple years). The author (know within the knitting community by her nickname “Yarn Harlot” is an entertaining writer and speaker and she managers to talk about what it is like to be a knitter with a lot of humor. While I think I already understood most of what was said by simply watching my wife, it is nonetheless a good presentation of the experience.

Darwin's Black Box: The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution

by Michael J. Behe

This is a book of evolution skepticism focused on the irreducible complicity of several biochemical systems as proof that modern evolution’s theories are not sufficient to explain the diversity of life. The author has no problems with evolution or that it explains the existence of many species, he just does not believe that it is sufficient to explain all species or even the existence of life in any form. In that sense, the author’s position is not far from my own.

I actually had read criticisms of this book before I purchased it – in fact I purchased it because I had seen such detailed rebuttals that I thought that any book that people take that much effort to object to might be worth reading. The science is excellent and the case he makes is compelling as far as it goes. The fundamental problem is that each of his arguments boils down to “there is no way anyone can identify to get from A to B using evolution”. These are true statements; but are fundamentally fragile – one scientific discovery and suddenly we might have such an explanation. In fact, the previous generation of evolution skeptics used to have long list of irreducibly systems at the intra-cellular level; but our greater understanding of how genes work have provided explanations of how they could have come about incrementally. So, the weight I put on this next generation of similar argument is limited.

Einstein's Cosmos: How Albert Einstein's Vision Transformed Our Understanding of Space and Time

by Michio Kaku

This is a mix of biography and science book that focuses on exactly how Einstein came up with his famous theories (and how he failed to come p with a grand unified theorem). I have read a few biographies of Einstein and many books that talk about the theories of relativity; but none that really talk about why and how Einstein was the one who managed to see what he saw. A rather interesting book.

Computer Games Played: none
DVDs Watched: AtS S1D4-6, BtVS S5D1-2

Next Book: Jumper by Steven Gould

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January 15, 2008

Life : Church winding down to sabbatical

This past Sunday, our whole congregation went over to the church that is going to host us while our own gathering is on sabbatical so that we all could check it out. They have two services Sunday morning; but they are not symmetrical. Most churches that run two services essentially do that same thing in both services (the idea being that they only reason to do a second service is because not everyone fits into one meeting, so you want to duplicate the same experience); but that is not the case with our hosts for the next year. Their two services are complete different – even different sermons delivered by different pastors. One service is focused on folks 40 years old and up, and the other for folks 39 down (although Anne and I both preferred the "younger" service and plan to attend it).

We also had the last meeting of our church's leadership team (what other churches might call "elders") before the sabbatical starts. We tied up a few loose ends and met with the representative of our denomination to talk through a few final issues. The denomination's rep doesn’t quite know how to record and report our status for the year (this kind of thing hasn’t been done before); but otherwise things seem under control.

Next week we have the final meeting of our little group as it exists now, and are planning it as a kind of celebration of what has happened over the last 10 years. Former members have been invited back (although I don't have a sense for how many will come). Then the week after that (January 27) we all officially start attending the church that will host us for this year. Our hosts have been very supportive of our move and our plan to re-launch the church in 2009. They will be giving us a place to meet together as a group in between the two services and the founding pastor of the host church has suggested that we reserve a few rows and all sit together so as to maintain our distinct identity.

On the flip side, the Tuesday Bible Study that I have been leading resumed last week after an extended December break. In fact Anne and I seem to be the only two people really "working" over the sabbatical (violating it?) – me teaching the study ( at least until we finish John) and Anne handing the administrative issues that need to be taken care of. Everyone else is taking a break from ministry.

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January 16, 2008

Books : Pagan Christianity

Pagan Christianity: The Origins of Our Modern Church Practices

by Frank Viola

Within every movement there is a radical fringe - people who embrace the principles of the movement, but who promote those ideas in such a confrontational way that those in the mainstream are often embarrassed by them. At least in my opinion, within the organic Church movement we have Frank Viola. I’ve read a few of his books over the last year, and think he is usually correct in his analysis; but the tone of his books tend to be so “in your face” that I hesitate recommending them.

A perfect example is his 2003 book “Pagan Christianity” in which he makes a case that a substantial part of how Christians “do church” is actually not Christian in origin; but are pagan practices that have been adopted into the church. In the book he examines:

- Having a church building to meet in
- The common features of a church building: the stained glass windows, pews, the platform at the front of the church, a rail in front of the platform, a table on the platform or in front of it, a pulpit, a steeple
- A standard order of worship: songs, offering, announcements, reading, sermon, prayer (or some variation thereof)
- Having a regular speech (a sermon) given as part of every weekly meeting
- Having a pastor who is in charge of a local church
- Dressing up for church
- Having the pastor wear distinct clothing.
- Having someone assigned to perform music on a weekly basis
- Paid local church leaders
- Having seminaries
- Having Sunday school
- Reading (and basing doctrines) on individual verses
- Sharing tiny pieces of bread and small cups of grape juice to commemorate the last supper

And for each of these he builds a well-researched case that they were not a part of first century church experience, exactly when and how each was adopted by the church, and why the inclusion of these things into the church is harmful. The research backing the book is extensive, with hundreds of foot notes in each chapter. Viola gives lip service to the idea that one can still do these things and have a good church experience; but the tone always seems to be "but you'd be wrong to do so".

In my blog I have tried to make many of the same points; but (I hope) starting from a more positive perspective. What I have tried to say is that if we are working to live up to the vision of the church described in the Bible, then many of these things are not helpful and should be discarded in favor of more interactive and less structured forms. I don’t think you need to say Christians are acting like a bunch of pagans to make that point (which is kind of what it feels like the 2003 book is saying).

The good news is that a new edition of the book has just been released, this time co-authored with George Barna who does seem to have moderated Viola's rhetoric a bit (although Barna's main contribution seem so be a Q&A section at the end of each chapter that handles the fairly obvious questions raised by Viola's points). The tone in this new edition is sufficiently improved that I feel comfortable recommending the book, although the publishing house (Tyndale Press – a fairly major Christian publisher) still felt the need to add a kind of apology page at the start of the book (We know this book is controversial; but we believe the ideas need to be discussed. . . ).

This new edition has become the "it" book among Christian blogs – with everyone wanting to share their take on it. One blog I read is even taking two weeks of posts to analyze it in detail. My own contributions have been delayed because I had trouble getting a copy – Amazon has sold out of the book within days of its release (this is most definitely an important book).

The bottom line is, as I said in Monday's post – if you find my ideas about church interesting; but are too comfortable with how church is normally done to be willing to make a change, then this is the book to read – it will almost certainly make you quite uncomfortable (one way or another).

PS: I found a blog that is tracking blog posts on this book

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January 17, 2008

Faith : Blogging as a spiritual discipline

Last week my friend Barry who writes Honest Faith tagged me to contribute to a meme started by Rob at The Spyglass.

The subject under consideration is this:

In what ways can you use blogging as a spiritual discipline?

where a spiritual discipline is defined (by Rob) as:

We could also say that spiritual disciplines are practices in which we engage in order "to cultivate our daily lives into fertile ground in which God can bring growth and change"; practicing the disciplines forms and shapes our lives much as the farmer forms and shapes the soil, clearing away unhelpful growth and carving the ground into furrows that will receive the seed and the rain, so that the crop will grow.

I’ve employed most of the classic spiritual disciplines (prayer, meditation, fasting, study, solitude, service, confession, worship, etc.), and I have a hard time thinking of blogging in that company. That is not to say that blogging cannot have spiritual benefits; but I believe that is true only in the sense that any activity dedicated to God can open us to His presence and work. As an example, when I was a pre-teen and both of my parents worked evenings I used to do most of the housework for the family and often met God while doing common chores (although, perhaps I was merely practicing the discipline of service).

For myself, one of the ways God has gifted me is as a writer – the times I most strongly sense the presence and power of God is when I am writing something I feel I have been lead to write. Now most of the posts on this blog do not fall into that category; but it remains the case that I always find myself opening up to God as I write anything. So there is a degree to which I experience any writing I do as something that “cultivates my daily life into fertile ground in which God can bring growth and change”.

Other contributors to this meme have noted the value of blogging to clarify one’s own thoughts. This is certainly true. It is one thing to believe something and quite another to figure out how to explain what you believe. I have had more than one post delayed or even discarded when I realized that my own thinking on a topic was flawed. So to use Rob’s metaphor of a farmer preparing the ground, blogging can certainly clear out weeds in my mind; but is that a spiritual discipline, or an intellectual one? Does thinking through topics for a blog post open me up to God’s work in my life or does it just work to bring my mind into conformance with what God is already doing in my heart? I’m not sure either way.

Finally, participating in the Christian blogosphere does bring me into contact with many other diverse believers. As such, it helps integrate my into the wider community of Christians and keeps me aware of the whole church and not just the small group I meet with regularly. But does that qualify it as a spiritual discipline? I am doubtful. There are times I can see patterns in what God is going in people’s lives around the world that confirms my understanding of what He is doing in my own life, and there may be times that this effect leaves me more open to what God is doing; but that seems like a rather weak and intermittent form of discipline.

So in the end I have to say that I am doubtful of the value of blogging as a spiritual discipline. That’s not to say it does not have value for myself and for the community of believers. I’m just not sure that value is primarily one that opens me up to God’s hand.

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Web : Clinton as Tracy Flick from "Election"

Those of you who have seen the 1999 file "Election" with Reese Witherspoon as a somewhat, uh, driven candidate for student body president will enjoy this.

Posted by Steven at 09:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 18, 2008

Books : The Scientists

The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greatest Inventors

by John Gribbin

I’ve enjoyed many of Gribbin’s other books (he is one of the better popular science authors) and this is perhaps his best so far. It is a survey of the history of Science as told through the lives of the men and women who made it. It covers all of the big names in all branches of science for the last 500 years and tells their stories – who they were, what they discovered, the environment in which they lived, why it was important, etc. Some people get whole chapters (Newton); but everyone gets a few pages. The result is a hefty 600+ page tome; but one that is very readable and well worth the time.

What I really appreciate is that this is a rather unvarnished treatment of these people, complete with their personal faults and professional mistakes. You get a sense from the book of how science actually happens, not the idealized history that can be found in other books. It is also fairly non-technical – it explains the science itself only enough to allow the reader to understand its significance, focusing more on the who and the how and less on the what. It is a book I am comfortable recommending to anyone.

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January 21, 2008

Books : Books 2008/01/21

Current count of books pending to be read: 136
Read 3, purchased 3

Books finished this week:

Jumper: A Novel

by Steven Gould

Back at the last WorldCon I attended, one of the panels attend went on a tangent on who is writing “good” YA (young adult) novels these day. While there were the inevitable differences of opinions, all of the panelists agree that Gould’s novel “Jumper” fit into that category. I put it on my wish list and have now finally gotten around to reading it (in part because the movie version is due out next month). In brief, I have to agree with the opinions of the panel – an excellent book and I definitely plan on seeing what else Gould have written (there is at least a sequel to Jumper).

The story is about a teen (Davey) who grew up with an absent mother and abusive, alcoholic father who discovers one day (as his father is about to beat him) that he has the ability to teleport himself to any place he is familiar with. What makes the book a fascinating read is that while Davey is psychologically and emotionally immature and not a little paranoid; Gould manages to portray him with such honesty that the reader sympathizes with him. And what Davey is far from a “good person” at the end of the book, he is at least a better person then at the start.

A movie based on the ideas of the book is due out next month. I state that carefully because while Davey appears in the movie, the story is at least in part about a completely new character as well as some plot points from the sequel.

Paul's Idea of Community: The Early House Churches in Their Cultural Setting, Revised Edition

by Robert J. Banks

A somewhat academic analysis of what Paul wrote in the Bible about Christianity as community and how it related to other religions movements at the time. The book goes into details on the Greek words Paul chose to use and how often he used them; and even makes some assumptions about the order in which Paul’s epistles were written and how his thoughts on Christian community may have evolved over time. The book also looks at movements like the Pharisees, the Essenes, the Stoics, the Cynics, and the various eastern mystery cults that were active at the time to compare Paul’s view with what his audience might have understood.

The Undecided Voter's Guide to the Next President: Who the Candidates Are, Where They Come from, and How You Can Choose

by Mark Halperin

A nice, non-partisan review of the major and minor candidates, giving their stance of key issues, biographical data, reason why people support them, reasons why people oppose them, etc. Only flaw is that it was published in October 2007, and as such Huckabee is listed as a minor candidate with an abbreviated review.

Computer Games Played: Democracy, Lord of the Rings Online
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: Wikinomics

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Web : Clive Thompson on Sci-Fi

An excellent essay on Wired's web site "Clive Thompson on Why Sci-Fi Is the Last Bastion of Philosophical Writing". A couple excerpts

Which brings me to my point. If you want to read books that tackle profound philosophical questions, then the best — and perhaps only — place to turn these days is sci-fi. Science fiction is the last great literature of ideas.

. . .

Here's my overly reductive, incredibly nerdy way of thinking about the novel: Consider it a simulation, kind of like The Sims. If you run a realistic simulation enough times — writing tens of thousands of novels about contemporary life — eventually you're going to explore almost every outcome. So what do you do then?
You change the physics in the sim. Alter reality — and see what new results you get. Which is precisely what sci-fi does. Its authors rewrite one or two basic rules about society and then examine how humanity responds — so we can learn more about ourselves. How would love change if we lived to be 500? If you could travel back in time and revise decisions, would you? What if you could confront, talk to, or kill God?

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Life : Church Taking the rest of the year off

My wife posted on her blog about this past Sunday's final meeting of our church before the sabbatical. I couldn't have said it better, so I'll just point folks at what she said.

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January 22, 2008

Movies : Cloverfield

If you have ever watched one of those old Japanese monster movies and wondered what it might be like for someone to be in one of those building being stomped on, “Cloverfield” Is the movie for you. It is essentially a cross between “Godzilla” (giant monster stomping through Manhattan) and “The Blair Witch Project” (the film is presented as a discovered camcorder tape made by a small group of friends trying to get out from underfoot).

Of course, what the film is really about is 9/11 and the filmmakers take every opportunity (once things start) to remind people of that. It starts with an explosion on a building, and within minutes we are treated to a shot of a building collapsing and the crowd running away from the resulting dust cloud (sound familiar?). The film is really about the sense of hopelessness that comes from being stuck in an incomprehensible act of violence that one has no ability to control. In that, it also harkens back to the old monster movies from the 50’s where the monsters were regularly stand-ins for the atomic bomb and the dangers of the atomic age.

For me, the whole un-steady camera work was just too hard to watch to really enjoy the film; but I do respect what they did.

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TV : Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles

So there's a new TV series out based on the Terminator movie series. It takes place after the second movie and replaces the events of the third (history is changed so that those events do not occur). In the series, the whole battle for the future has moved into the past with many agents from both sides (humans and machines) being transported back in time to either prevent or ensure the rise of SkyNet. One set of human agents secretly build a time machine which is used to transport Sarah, John, and a new "good" terminator from 1998 to 2006 when the current incarnation of SkyNet is supposed to be created so they can join the underground fight to stop it.

The two-hour pilot didn’t actually grab me. It had lots of action and exposition; but the characters were all rather flat – I didn’t develop much of an interest in any of them. Still, I was willing to give it a couple more weeks to see where they were headed, and I am glad I did. The second episode was much better – adding the much lacking human element; and last night's episode was excellent. It spent the time to really explore the classic moral issue doing violence to prevent greater violence in the future (usually posed as "Would you kill Hitler as a child?"). Here they discover an average guy working as a cell phone salesman who in his spare time is developing an AI to play chess that appears to become a key piece of SkyNet. The guy is quite nice and means no one any harm; but his hobby just happens to contribute to the end of the world.

If they can keep doing episodes like that, I'll stick with the series.

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January 23, 2008

Thoughts : Decision 2008

Days are ticking down to the California primaries and I am working to make my final decision on who I am going to vote for. As a preliminary for that I have been thinking this week about what issues are most important to me for the next 4 years. So here’s what I am looking for the next president to deal with (in rough priority order, most to least important to me).

Integrity

I want someone who has integrity in their position. I don’t want someone who will tell me what I want to know to get elected and then do whatever they want when they are in office. All of the rest of the issues don’t matter if the candidate isn’t honest about where they really stand. (Yeah, that eliminates most of them from the start).

The Deficit

I know there are people around the world who are looking for ways to hurt America and Americans; but in my opinion our growing national debt and the amount of that debt that is held by foreign investors is the biggest threat to America’s security and sovereignty. Unless we can balance the budget, pay down the debt, and somehow fund the various entitlements we have established; America’s peace and prosperity are heading to a brick wall even if we can somehow reign in terrorists and rogue states.

A Balance between National Security and Personal Liberty

While we need to invest vastly more in intelligence gathering to identify and address threats to the USA, we must be careful to not sacrifice what makes America worth defending in the process. Personal liberties of US citizens (at least) must be defended - we must find ways to make ourselves secure without violating those principles. I am looking for a president who opposes the Patriot Act and the Real ID act; but at the same time is willing to invest heavily in intelligence gathering around the world.

A More Moderate Foreign Policy

We need to back away from threatening to attack everyone who doesn’t like us; because by doing so we are simply increasing the number of countries that feel that way. I still support our intervention in Afghanistan – I only wish we had invested more in finishing the job there and not gone on to attack Iraq. Unfortunately, we did attack Iraq and so we have some responsibility to try and clean up the mess we created; but the next president better be one that will be more careful about the use of military force. If we are going to attack, we need to be sure that we will get our money’s worth in increased security (as opposed to spending billions and leaving us less secure).

Unfortunately, I don’t think there are any candidates that meet my criteria; so I’ll have to compromise (as usual); but at least I know what I am compromising on.

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January 24, 2008

Faith : How I Study the Bible, Part 1 - translation

This is the first in what I hope is a series of essays on what I have learned about how to study the Bible. While I plan to hit the high points in this series, I very strongly recommend that people read “How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth” by Fee and Stuart, which contains pretty much everything I learned the hard way over the last 35 years.

The first issue you have to face when reading the Bible is that it wasn’t written in English. So unless you are a biblical Greek and Hebrew scholar (I’m not), you are going to end up reading a translation. The problem is that translation is never a perfect process and is subject to the translators’ biases. What’s more, there is a spectrum of approaches to doing a translation (some day I need to post on Hofstadter’s “Le Ton Beau De Marot” which is a great book on the process of translating anything). On one end of the spectrum you have word-for-word translation, and on the other you have thought-for-thought or phrase-for-phrase translation. The latter approaches are more susceptible to the translator’s bias (they end up translating what they think the passage means and not what it literally says); but word-for-word translation often misses idiom and structural factors that contribute to the meaning. Neither approach works.

So what’s the solution? Read more than one translation - and pick translations that use different methodologies. When I study the Bible, I use 2-4 different translation (actually 2-5 but I’ll get to the fifth in a moment). I read every passage in both the NIV (thought-for-thought) and NASB (fairly word-for-word) translations. Other folks suggest the combination of the NIV and NRSV is better. Then for key verses (those that I am depending on the meaning of) I also read them in Young’s Literal Translation (the ultimate in word-for-word) and The Message (an extreme thought-for-thought translation). Comparing those, I at least have a clear sense of what verses have translation issues. If they all read pretty much the same, I don’t worry; but if they are different (particularly between the NIV and NASB), then I know that the passage might be difficult to express in English. That’s the minimum effort I would recommend to any Christian with respect to translation.

I personally go farther. Twenty years ago I picked up my first Interlinear Bible and Greek/Hebrew Lexicon. An Interlinear Bible prints the English translation, and then right below each line it prints the original Greek/Hebrew text. While I have not (yet?) studied Greek, simply reading an Interlinear Bible for 20 years has helped me to recognize a lot of Greek words as I read (less so with Hebrew since I read the Old Testament less and have a harder time recognizing Hebrew characters on sight). When the meaning of a specific word is important (or where the comparison of the NIV/NASB text implies that there is a translation challenge), I look the word up in a Greek/Hebrew Lexicon (or two – multiple sources is important in every aspect of Bible study).

Now all of this sounds like a lot of work, and 20 years ago it was. Today however there exists software like BibleSoft’s “PC Study Bible” that has all of that information available at a mouse click. These days when I study the Bible (as opposed to just reading it), I use PC Study Bible (buggy though it may be); and I have 15 translations and 8 different lexicons available to me with a click of the mouse. BTW - I particular like “Thayer’s Complete Greek Lexicon” as it includes references to how the word is used in Greek literature outside of the Bible.

That’s all I have to say on the translation issues – I’ll address other aspects in later posts.

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January 25, 2008

Books : Three Books by Douglas Hofstadter

Douglas R. Hofstadter is a computer scientist who has written several books, at least two of which I consider modern masterpieces which should be read by everyone who is sincerely curious about the world.

Godel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid

Hofstadter wrote GEB back in 1979, and (in my opinion) it is to non-fiction what the writing of Falkner and Joyce are to fiction – a masterpiece of the use of literary techniques to communicate ideas. The book was originally supposed to be a short pamphlet about Gödel’s incompleteness theorem; but as the author followed the connections that existed within his mind between Gödel’s theorem and everything else, the book ballooned up to over 700 pages. It gets into music, Zen, graphic arts, philosophy, artificial intelligence, and many other subjects. I used to describe GEB as a “core dump” of a young engineer’s brain. And “young” is a key word here. There are times reading the book feels like being dragged around by a 6 year old showing you his toy collection “And look at this”, “See what this does!”

The most amazing thing about the book is the use of word-play. From the unusual format of alternating chapters between prose and “dialogs” between fictional characters; to the use of things like acrostics in the text. There is even a chapter where the author attempts to translate a piece of music into a dialog (replacing musical themes with literary ones).

One thing GEB is not is personal. While the author writes himself as a character in the final dialog, he exposes very little of himself in the work beyond the web of connections that exist within his mind.

This book has a profound impact on me and my view of the world. Before I read GEB I often felt like a collection of disjoint interests; but Hofstadter put me on track to understand the “big picture” of my own identify (which is different from his; but seeing how he connected things in his life helped me connect things in mine.

Le Ton Beau De Marot: In Praise of the Music of Language

This is (in my opinion) Hofstadter’s second masterpiece, written in 1998. The books is less playful than GEB (or at least more obvious when it gets into word-play) and certainly much more personal. The core of the book is the question of translation (and much of what he says also applies to Bible translation).

It, like GEB, has three threads intertwined: First, there is the story of how GEB was translated into a variety of languages. Given the amount of word-play in GEB, translating it in a way that preserved the magic of the original was quite a challenge. Second it takes a short poem in French (28 trisyllabic lines) and provides 72 different possible “translations” of the poem over the course of the book. In the process, Hofstadter examines the whole issue of “meaning”, particularly as it is applied to things like poetry. Third, the book is at least somewhat autobiographical, telling the author’s own story as GEB was being translated and his series of lectures on translation/meaning.

This book has changed how I view language and translation. I’ve always been interested in linguistics (I started to devise my own language when I was in High School); but this book gave me context for my interest.

I Am a Strange Loop

While not (in my opinion) the masterpiece that the other two books are, this is still a very interesting read. In many respects it is the same book as GEB, only written by an older, wiser, and wearier man. It lacks the work play and “look at this” tone of his first book; but actually presents the central themes of GEB in a clear and concise manner. It is also the most personal of his books – driven by the author’s need to come to terms with his wife’s death and to look back on his beliefs about identity and meaning. I also recommend this book, although not as a replacement for GEB.

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January 28, 2008

Books : Books 2008/01/28

Current count of books pending to be read: 133
read three, purchased none (actually I did get 2 books; but they were reference books - not books to be 'read')

Books finished this week:

Life After Church: God's Call to Disillusioned Christians

by Brian Sanders

An excellent book – I am tempted to devote a whole blog entry to a review. Certainly one I recommend to any Christian.

The book is by, about, and for those Christians who are absolutely devoted to their faith in Jesus; but who have become disillusioned and disenchanted with the institution of “church”. The book explores the phenomenon of “leavers” – Christians who stay Christian but leave churches. It examine why people leave, how to decide if one should leave or not, what to do if you stay, and what to do if you leave.

While I am not a “leaver” (at least not yet), I found the perspective this book refreshing. While the author clearly has issues with the institutional church, he (unlike Frank Viola) tries to keep the tone positive – talking about “what leavers are looking for in church” and not “what is wrong with churches”. What’s more, he has some real insights into the issues involved and has some excellent ways to express key points. I think the author’s view of what church should be like and mine are very similar, but he has some new ways to talk about it.

This is a must-read for any leaver (or potential leaver) but I would also recommend the book to all Christians as a source of a new perspective on church.

Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

by Don Tapscott and Anthony D. Williams

Decent book on the whole concept of leveraging communities to do useful thing. The book has a lot of case studies, not just on free projects like Lunix and Wikipedia, but also of profitable businesses who are creating communities to improve their company.

Reading Deadwood: A Western to Swear By

edited by David Lavery

A very good “TV Studies” book – this one a collection of academic essays on the HBO drama “Deadwood”. This is definitely an academic book, and the quality of the essays is quite high (only one got a bit too academic for me).

The series (btw) is excellent, although one I am careful when recommending since it contains a lot of bad language, sex, and violence; but none of it is gratuitous. The show is about the evolution of law and order out of lawlessness and chaos and the dark side of life is necessary to make its point. The story is set in the town of Deadwood during the gold rush there and at least initially the existence of the town was against US policy and law (it was within territory owned by Native Americans according to treaty), so there literally was no law there. In the series, the two “leading citizens” of the town were brothel owners who eventually recognize the need for some kind of law (although in a form that would allow them to continue to make a good profit), and the series about that gradual evolution of a community – how laws are needed to allow people to live together in close quarters.

Computer Games Played:LotRO
DVDs Watched: none

Next Book: A Tour of the Calculus

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January 29, 2008

Life : The Current Slave Trade

Anne and I saw a presentation this last Sunday on human slavery – not the enslavement of Africans for American plantations in the 19th century; but the forms of slavery that exist today, some in our own city. The presentation was given by an activist who is passionate about the cause of ending slavery, so I am hesitant to quote their statistics without some additional investigation (my experience is that people who are that passionate about a cause are rarely analyze supporting evidence very carefully); but one fact stuck out that I want to share – according to their statistics there are more people enslaved in America today than there were over the whole period of the Atlantic slave trade in the 18th and 19th centuries.

To be clear, I am not talking about people working in sweatshops for sub-standard wages and under sub-standard conditions (a deplorable situation in its own right). I am talking about real slavery where the workers are kept under constant guard, paid nothing (given only subsistence food and shelter) and locked up at night to prevent them from escaping.

Unfortunately, I have a lot of reason to believe their numbers. I can recall two slavery busts in our local area within the last 5 years. One involving agricultural workers at a farm just south of here, and another involving eastern European sex workers that was actually in the town where we live (on a street that we drive down regularly). In the presentation they talked about two other cases I hadn’t heard about – one involving restaurant workers in Berkley and another involving Asian sex workers in San Francisco. It is assumed that this is a small fraction of what is actually happening in our community. And the US is likely better than in many countries where the government (or at least the police) is corrupt and prosecution of slavery is rare.

One of the points that were made in the talk is that many products we have available to us in the US (or the materials used to make them) are produced by slave labor. Their statistics (again: caveat emptor) are that roughly half of certain key minerals are mined by slave labor. Anne and I had already established a bias in our purchasing in favor of products that have been “fair trade” certified. This cause might raise the importance of that distinction in our future decisions.

The presentation also covered some other interesting aspects of the problem. For instance, some groups have advocated paying to redeem slaves and set them free. The problem is that, as well meaning as this idea is, it actually only has the effect of raising the price of slaves (to buy someone out of slavery you have to pay more) and thus making it more profitable for slave traders. Essentially, such groups just subsidize the industry and have no effect on the availability of slaves.

Again, I want to do some independent investigation of this – see if anyone out there refutes their numbers; but I think this is an issue I might end up investing some of my energy in. It is amazing that that 200 years after William Wilberforce helped end the African slave trade in England, slavery has actually grown around the world and in America.

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January 30, 2008

Faith : A Pragmatic Orthodoxy

I wrote a couple essays on the need for balanced view of orthodoxy (getting all your doctrines right) within Christianity; but never felt that I got across the point I wanted to make. So here I am trying again.

While I think it is important to have a correct understanding of Christianity, I am skeptical of the need to understand it beyond what is needed to succeed at the practical aspects of living as a Jesus follower. My belief if that if we limit ourselves to talking about those aspects of Christianity that have immediate practical applications, that many (but by no means all) of the issues that have divided Christians become moot. By focusing on what we actually can apply, we develop a pragmatic form of orthodoxy that is useful without being divisive.

I think this is a fruitful direction to pursue for two reasons. First, Christianity must be a faith that can be followed by all people, even those with limited intellect or education, so complex, abstract, esoteric or theoretical concerns cannot be necessary to the faith. Second, while I trust that God will have made clear those issues that we need to understand for our everyday lives, there is no reason to believe He would have made clear things we would have no use for. So there is no basis to assume that the answers for some of these less practical concerns can in fact be discerned correctly from scripture.

As examples: The “last straw” that led to the split between the Eastern/Orthodox and Roman/Catholic churches was whether the Spirit “proceeds from The Father” or “proceeds from The Father and The Son”. Yet I have never found a case in my whole life where how I have acted as a Christian would have changed based on which is correct. Again, if you assume that as Christians we are commanded to obey God, then whether we as individuals obey because we choose to or we obey because we were predestined to is moot – we should all still try to obey. Or to even move into the realm of heresy: I have never had a situation in my life where I would have acted differently depending on whether The Son was co-eternal with The Father or not.

Now this still leaves legitimate doctrinal issues that need to be agreed upon. Cessationist vs. Charismatic still maters because it affects what you pray for and what you expect from God on a day to day basis. Infant or “believers” baptism matters. Questions of obedience and holiness are frequently practical. There are doctrinal issues that must be settled. My desire is that we focus only on those issues that we can use in our lives and ignore those that are more abstract.

That’s not to say we should completely ignore these other points. There is value in understanding what different people believe and why. In the Bible study I lead I often talk about how different groups use certain verse to justify their position. What I don’t do is focus on making sure everyone agrees with a particular position. I think if we keep our focus on practical doctrines and keep theoretical issues as a matter of intellectual curiosity, then we would find ourselves in a friendlier and more productive Christianity.

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January 31, 2008

Books : The writings of Major W. Ian Thomas

The Saving Life of Christ

The Mystery of Godliness

And

The Indwelling Life of Christ: All of Him in All of Me

by Major W. Ian Thomas

When I was 11 years old, having only started my personal relationship with God a year before, I attended a week of meetings at a nearby church that changed my whole perspective on Christianity. The meetings were lead by Major W. Ian Thomas. That I can still remember his name 36 years later is a tribute to how great an impact his teaching had on me.

This past year I discovered that Ian Thomas had published several books, and I managed to purchase and read of a three of them (two in one volume).

“The Indwelling Life of Christ” is a series of 50 short devotionals, many on the same themes he spoke on that week long ago. My copy is now packed with post-it bookmarks for passages I want to return to so as to remind myself of key truths. I strongly recommend this book to fellow Christians.

“The Saving Life of Christ” is about the difference between trusting God for salvation (going to heaven after you die) and trusting God for your life in the here and now. It explores the weakness and frustration that exists if you find yourself stuck with the one and not the other. I also learned some cool stuff about Amalak (one of the enemies of the Isrealites) from this.

“The Mystery of Godliness” is an examination of how God transforms us into His image. He goes into some fairly deep theology on _why_ Jesus was dependant on the Father, and _why_ we must be dependant on Jesus. There are definitely some connections with other verses that I had never seen before. The book starts out quite strong; but the latter parts go back to stuff that I think of as basics. Still, worth reading.

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