Monthy Archive: May 2009
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May 01, 2009

Books , Life : Mission accomplished

As long time readers of this blog (are there any other kind?) know, in the fall of 2007 I reached a crisis of shelf space. My “shelf of books purchased but unread” had overflowed the shelf, the bookcase, the bedside table and on to the floor around my bed. I had 167 books I owned that I had wanted to read; but had not gotten to yet (this despite reading over a hundred books every year).

So, over the next year I made a concerted effort (particularly in the form of limiting my purchases of new books) and managed to work the total down to 73 (with only 25 new books purchased) – good progress, but not finished. Actually, while it was easy to monitor my progress in the early stages in numerical terms (how did the pending list increase or decrease in a given week), my ultimate goal was geometric. I wanted all of my “pending” books to fit on a particular shelf in such a way that I could identify each of them at a glance (so no book could be obscured in a way that prevented my being able to tell what it was).

Well, as you might have guessed from the title of this post, I reached that goal last night. The count turns out to be 29, although that will obvious vary as the thickness of the books I purchase vary. The main import of this accomplishment is that my “rules of engagement” at Amazon are relaxed. I can now buy whatever books for Kindle I want, as long as I have budget; and I buy whatever paper books I want as long as I have budget AND there is room on the shelf for them (so I need to read a couple more before doing my next order). Feel good to have that back under control.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink

May 04, 2009

Faith , Life : Settling on Church(es)

Anne and I seem to have settled on being a part of two church communities in San Francisco for the time being. This is actually a bit odd for me – usually God has directed me to a single community into which He wants me to pour all of my energies; but I do have a sense that God wants us involved in both of these groups for now. I’m still not sure how that is going to work out; but I’ll keep my spirit open to God showing us how to do this. We’ve had one schedule conflict we got stuck in this quarter; but should be able to work around that starting next month.

So one of the communities is The Journey, a plant from The Journey church in New York City. It is in many respects a fairly standard modern evangelical church. Big church service on Sunday led by the pastor, a variety of small groups through the week for those who are open to more. What I personally appreciate about The Journey is first its friendliness – Anne and I have quickly made connections with a number of people there; and second that while in many respects they are a “seeker friendly” church (one that structures themselves to be very welcoming to those who are outside of the faith), they in no way compromise the message of the gospel. In too many cases “seeker friendly” translates to “soft-sell God’s message”; but that isn’t the case at The Journey. The music is hip (sometime a bit too hip for me, but I cope), the Sunday service is short, with many breaks, etc. However the message is clear and uncompromising. I’m still not sure what our role is going to be with The Journey; but we are committed to being involved there until God tells us otherwise.

The other community is Eucharist, which is a bit more unique of a group. In many ways they are the embodiment of what I mean when I say “organic church” in that they seem to have set aside all assumptions about what it means to “do church” and are really focused on becoming a community that will attract and serve the people in our area (I say “our” because the community is centered in our neighborhood – Anne and I tend to walk to gatherings). The result is an interesting mix of meetings which continues to evolve as new needs and opportunities are identified. There is a set of meetings which conform to what would be called a simple/house church and Anne and are building some great relationships at that. There is a larger meeting on most Sundays which is focused on studying the book of Acts (so people understand how the first century church operated in their context). Then one Sunday a month there is a special forum (called “The Big Question”) where we talk about big societal questions, not necessarily from a Christian point of view (and invite people who have not been a part of the community to join us). The way I personally look at “The Big Question” is that we can’t always expect people to be willing to talk about the things that matter to us (God, Jesus, etc.) unless we are willing to talk about the things that matter to them (consumerism, ethics of torture, etc.). I think I have a clearer sense of why God wants us involved in Eucharist; but regardless of my understanding, we are also committed to being involved with them until God tells us otherwise.

By the way, both of these communities also have regular service projects as part of their schedule where we get together to help out the larger San Francisco community. I hadn’t realized until we moved up to San Francisco how much I miss that kind of service (at University, I was a brother in Alpha Phi Omega, a national service fraternity, and was used to going on service projects multiple times a month).

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink

May 06, 2009

Thoughts : Atheistic Ethics

"The Big Question" forum by Eucharist seems to get me thinking, which means it also will tend to get me blogging. This past Sunday, the topic was the basis for ethics and morals, and included a discussion of theistic morals (those derived from some concept of a deity) and atheistic morals (those derived without recourse to deity). I have a lot to say on the subject (much, but not all, I was able to contribute to the meeting). I'll start with my views on atheistic morals and deal with theistic morals in my next post.

Unlike some Christians, I have no problem with the idea that one can derive a reasonable set of ethics without resorting to God, although I do believe the process by which this occurs will result in some differences with more theistic morals. Fundamentally, I think morals/ethics are "memes" (the idea-equivalent of genes) which will tend to evolve in any society of sentient beings. Once people come together to gain the benefits of community (economies of scale, specialization, etc.) then some principles become necessary for the community to work together cooperatively. A community will not last long if there is no sense that people can't kill each other for any reason.

So atheistic ethics/morals tend to evolve over times to allow a society to adapt to its context. New ideas spring up (the meme equivalent of mutations) and if they prove helpful to society they will gain acceptance as the norm. Those that are not helpful will tend to be discarded over time (although they may still be held by a minority of a population as long as the ideas are not too harmful – the equivalent of rare alleles of a gene).

The advantage of this scheme is that like all evolutionary processes, it tends to give optimal solutions given enough time. You can even explain "golden rule" type morals this way – there is a trade-off between the benefit gained to the individual by it being acceptable for them to do something to someone else, and a cost to it being acceptable for that thing to be done to them. As the population of a community increases, the number of people who would be interested in doing whatever it is to the individual will tend to grow faster than their ability to gain benefit by doing it to others. So as population grows, it becomes advantageous to say "it is bad ethics/morals to do to other people what you would not want done to you".

The disadvantage of this scheme is that like all evolutionary processes, it can be slow in responding to changes in the environment, and such periods of transition can be difficult. This is reasonable when the transitions are gradual; but as the pace of societal change increases, the ability of evolved ethics to keep up becomes a problem. In the biological realm, a rapid environment change will often result in large numbers of species being wiped out while other species that had been on the edge of the ecosystem may find themselves better suited and come to dominance. In the ethical realm, rapid societal changes will tend to result in the overthrow of long-cherished moral ideas while fringe views may suddenly become the norm. Readers are encouraged to look at what has happened in our culture over the last 40 years for examples of this in effect.

As a concrete (although intentionally controversial) example of the process of atheistic ethics at work, I would claim that history shows us that ethics that support slavery are advantageous in pre-industrial, agrarian society and therefore those memes are likely to flourish in such societies. The fact that the "slavery meme" was in fact quite successful around the world is proof that it had some advantage. Yet as societies became industrialized, the anti-slavery meme started to gain acceptance, although the transition was often fraught with conflict. I don't give this example to show how atheistic morals are bad, just how they tend to be adaptive to the environment.

Friday – some thoughts on theistic ethics.

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

May 08, 2009

Thoughts : Theistic Ethics

OK, so I am a Jesus Follower and therefore my own personal sense of ethics starts with my understanding of God's commandments to love Him and to love people. However, "God said it, I believe it, that settles it" makes for a short post, so I'm going to approach this from a different direction.

In my last post I proposed how humanity can and does evolve a collection of memes that provide an ethical sense based on finding ways to live together in community, without having to resort to an absolute sense of right and wrong provided by God. So how would it make sense to adopt an ethical perspective provided by "god". To answer that question, I think you first need to ask how it would make sense for any community of individuals to adopt an ethical perspective from some other community.

I claim that in the general case this would be a bad idea. As I explained in my previous post, the process of evolving memes will tend (over time) to produce reasonably optimal ethics for a community given their context. The problem is that the context of another community will almost certainly be different and therefore their sense of ethics will not be optimal in a context in which those memes did not develop.

So, if humanity was to encounter sentient life from another solar system, two things will likely be true – their sense of ethics will be different from ours, and those differences will make their morality ill suited for humanity. Trying to adopt an alien morality for humans would be like introducing non-indigenous life-forms into an ecology. The results are almost never good for the indigenous life-forms. That's not to say there wouldn't be some common ground (one could imagine that prohibitions on murder would develop in many different contexts, although the details on what constitutes murder vs. justified killing would vary). IMHO this is an area that has been explored by too few Science Fiction writers. I'll note here quickly that examples of this failure can be seen in world history as European colonialists went out and tried to impose a set of ethics that evolved in the European context on the indigenous populations in the rest of the world.

So adopting the ethics employed by another life form would not be a good idea. Yet that's not quite what most religions propose. Most religions in fact make a distinction between what is ethical for "god" to do and what is ethical for people to do. Instead, what most religions propose is that "god" defines what is ethical for people separate from his/her/its own morality. So, the real question becomes: under what circumstances is it appropriate for a community to take someone else's recommendations for its own ethics?

I claim there are two basic requirements for that. The first is that there needs to be some reason to believe that the external source of ethics is able to produce a system which is superior to the one that the community has evolved on its own. This implies that the external party has vastly greater insight into not just the current context of the community; but also how that context will change over time. In religious terms, it means that we should not take ethical advice from "god" unless "god" is something close to all-knowing and all-wise.

I claim that the second requirement for a community to accept ethical advice from some external party is that the external party has the community's best interests at heart. One could easily imagine (or see in world history) examples of one community giving bad ethical advice to another for reasons of self-interest. It is therefore not enough for the external party to be smart enough to devise a superior ethical model, they must also be motivated to do so. In religious terms, it means that we should not take ethical advice from "god" unless "god" is loving and compassionate towards humanity.

Now as a Jesus Follower I do believe that God exists and that he fulfills both of these requirements. God is all-knowing, all-wise, all-loving, and all-compassionate. Based on that I am willing to look to Him for my understanding of what is right and wrong, trusting that He will lead me in the best way given my current context and whatever context I will find myself in the years ahead. But I do understand the need of someone else coming through a process like my own to come to those same conclusions.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

May 10, 2009

Life : Premature Post

Sorry - Wednesday's post got put up today because of user error. I took it back down and it should re-post correctly on Wednesday

Posted by Steven at 03:34 PM | Permalink

May 11, 2009

Movies : Star Trek 2009 – I like it

Saw the new Star Trek movie on Friday; and yeah, that’s the way to re-boot the franchise.

Instead of trying to re-tell the original story with a new cast and new sensibilities, or to completely re-imagine the original series from scratch (both techniques have been used successfully elsewhere), J. J. Abrams found a middle road between the two paths which takes advantage of this being SciFi. The new Star Trek movie is essentially the start of an alternative timeline for the original series. Events transpire (I won’t spoil too much) which change history so that while all of our heroes do end up on the Enterprise by the end of the film, the paths by which they get there are different from those taken by the characters in the original series.

What this means is that everything is on the table where it comes to continuity. The writers can keep anything they want to stay the same from the original series (they are after all “the same characters”); but they can also change anything they want to change (their early lives have been altered by the events of the film). You could even kill off characters (or even whole species) without any fan crying “continuity”. The result is that all of the signatures of the original show have been preserved (all of the characters get to say their signature lines, people in red shirts still die, our heroes climb on those same rocks that we saw so often in the original shows, Starfleet uniforms still include miniskirts for the women, etc.) but many changes are made to make the characters more interesting (including an romance).

Now the plot does have a few holes in it (most of which are filled in if you read the prequel comic book for the movie; but I got the sense that the comic book was deliberately written to “fix” the problems in the shooting script). However, since the movie is much more of a character story than the original series, I didn’t mind the plot issues as much as I might – what matters is seeing these characters play against each other. In that respect, credit has to be given to Zachary Quinto playing Spock. I have to admit I was skeptical when I heard “Sylar” was going to play Spock; but he does an outstanding job of playing a much deeper and complex Spock than the writers supported in the original series.

So the actors are all signed up for two more films, and I am definitely looking forward to them.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink

May 13, 2009

Books , Thoughts : Evolution, Past and Future

Read two books last week, both on the subject of evolution although with very different points of focus.

The first was Jerry Coyne’s “Why Evolution Is True” which is by far the best defense of the Theory of Evolution I have seen in print. It would have been perfect if Coyne had included a chapter that explains our latest understanding of how bodies are formed based on genetics (and therefore how only small mutations are needed to produce significantly different forms). The book did successfully address a couple of my concerns with the current formation of evolution. (As noted, perhaps too frequently, on this blog – I have no problems reconciling evolution with my faith; but as an amateur scientist I do have questions that I think have yet to be addressed by the current formations of evolution).

The one big concern I still have with evolution for which I found Coyne’s presentation still lacking is an explanation of speciation – how we end up with many different species as opposed to a single (although diverse) gene pool. Coyne presents the best understanding that exists today – that most animal speciation is a result of geographic separation (there is another mechanism which accounts for the existence of many plant species). This is because where there’s a population of creatures that are not physically separated; any mutation that would limit what other creature they could breed with would tend to be selected against. Furthermore, to find those species living in the same area, the geographic separation must have been overcome. If you consider the number of different animal species you tend to find living together, that’s a whole lot of separation and reuniting going on. This might well prove to be a reasonable explanation; but I’d like to see more thorough modeling of this – is the amount of dynamic isolation needed for this to work supported by the geological, fossil, and timeline evidence?

Then from the practical to the speculative.

The second book I read was Ray Kurzweil’s “The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology”. The essential argument of this book is that the evolution of sentient intelligence naturally leads to biological evolution becoming surpassed by the evolution of non-biological life-forms – artificial intelligences and/or human intelligence transcribed into computer software. If evolution states that life-forms which are better adapted to produce fertile offspring will succeed over those less capable, then technological life will naturally succeed over biological life. A robot programmed with a human’s consciousness is “fitter” in the evolutionary sense.

What’s more, Kurzweil argues, this transition will be happening soon, perhaps in our lifetimes. He first makes the case that technology is accelerating at an exponential rate (Moore’s Law writ large). Based on that, laptop computers with more memory and processing power than a human brain are just around the corner. Likewise the ability to completely analyze and model a human brain is also on the way. Further, Kurzweil believe that true artificial intelligences are also close (although I personally found his arguments here weak), and once they exists they will tend to further accelerate the rate of technological innovation (you can have a computer rack full of artificially intelligent “scientists” working together on any problem for a fraction of the cost of a lab of real humans). The bottom line is that Kurzweil believes that artificial humans will exist by 2040, and by 2100 biological intelligences will be in the minority. And since the rate of change of technology is increasing exponentially, even if it is 10 times harder then he thinks, that only delays it by a decade or so.

I’ve read Kurzweil’s theories before (particularly in his “The Age of Spiritual Machines: When Computers Exceed Human Intelligence”) which covers much of the same ground and I am of mixed feelings. On the one hand, while I can raise objections to some of his individual points, I can’t argue against the overall flow of his theory - it does seem inevitable (I am ignoring here the question of whether any part of consciousness is hosted in something other than matter). On the other hand, there’s a significant part of me that is frightened of such a future. I’ve actually done some fiction writing on my own to explore how I feel about this (nothing worthy of publishing, just a way to get my own thoughts in order), and should such a time come, I may in fact be one of the bio-luddites who objects to it.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink

May 15, 2009

TV : 2009 TV Finales

So I wrote about Movies on Monday and Books on Tuesday so I figured that since there were season (or series) finales of several TV shows this past week I’d complete the media triptych.

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW!
If you haven’t seen these shows and don’t want o be spoiled, don’t read my comments below.

Dollhouse

As I have written previously, Dollhouse recovered from the slow start and turned into an interesting series, the difference being the focus moved away from the character Echo/Christina and onto the Dollhouse itself. The season finale (actually the last two episodes) continued that upward trajectory with a number of twists. I particularly liked finding out that at least one of the Dollhouse staff is a Doll/Active (a particularly valuable member of the staff died; but they happened to have a recent “backup” of their mind, so with a little editing to make the transition...). The show has now come down strongly on the POV that some aspect of moral character (the person’s “soul”?) cannot be reprogrammed using the Dollhouse’s technology. I do hope it gets renewed.

Fringe

Fringe has been my guilty pleasure this season – a show that objectively doesn’t meet my criteria for “good TV”; but I watch it anyway, largely because the character of Walter is just so fun (the actor John Noble really disserves some recognition for his work). The series has also gotten better as it has gone on and the show’s underlying mythology has become clearer. While I had figured out early on where, in general , they would find Dr. Bell, the final reveal of his exactly location was wonderful. Plus we have enough information to figure out the big secret regarding Peter. Nicely done.

Lost

So in this season the show fully embraced being Science Fiction. With the set up of the season 4 finale, it looks like in the 5th and final season, they will embrace the mythic. We now know the correct response to the pass code “What lies in the shadow of the statue?”: “Ille qui nos omnes servabit” – “He who saves us all” in Latin. I loved the preamble with Jacob and the man in black, and the final fade to white certainly left things open for next season.

Bones

That was bizarre. The show has played with the format before; but never to that extent. It was however quite entertaining seeing everyone playing strange parodies of themselves. Of course, the final reveal at the end was a bit of a cliffhanger for a show whose renewal is not yet locked in.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink

May 18, 2009

Faith : “Love the sinner...”

One of the stock aphorisms in Christianity these days is that Christians should “love the sinner but hate the sin”. At some level that sounds like good advice; but the problem I have observed is that the distinction is often too subtle for the “sinners” to tell the difference. Our attempt to love the person while hating their actions just look like us hating the individual to those on the receiving end.

Now looking at scriptures, the commandment to love all people (friends, enemies, sinners, etc.) is quite clear and unambiguous. In fact we are commanded to love them sacrificially – giving of ourselves to serve them all. Yet it is hard to find scriptures which command us to hate sin in other people. Yes, God certainly hates sins – there is no doubt about that; but people seemed to be cautioned by scripture against focusing in any way on other people’s sins. We are told to not judge each other. We are told to not concern ourselves with the splinter in someone else’s eye given that we have a log in our own. We are told to not talk about other people’s faults.

So what does it look like if we reduce that aphorism to just “love the sinner”? Does sin abound because we never challenge it? I don’t think so.

When I see someone whose life is spiraling downward because they bound up by an addiction, my love for them compels me to want to see them free of their addiction. This isn’t because their abuse is a “sin” (that categorization plays no role in my actions)– it is because their abuse is harming them and those close to them. I believe if we simply love people, we will want to see them free of habits and traits which harm them and others. There is no sense of hate directed towards anything, no concern over what is sin or not – only love towards the person.

But, one may ask, doesn’t all sin harm people? Shouldn’t we then seek to see all people free of all sins? I certainly agree that God’s commands are not arbitrary – that they are meant to serve as fences and guardrails to keep us all away from things which would harm us. Yet when we intellectualize this, when we begin with the premise “in theory this is harmful to them” we move away from the realm of a loving heart and into the realm of a judgmental mind. Unless we can perceive the harm some trait or habit is doing to the person, it is hard for us keep our actions motivated by sincere love. I think it is best to stay away from what we “think” someone should or should not be doing, and stay centered on the pain we feel when we see people bound up in destructive behavior.

So how then do the other sins – those for whom the harm is less obvious to human eyes – get addressed? I can say from my own life, they get addressed by God. Most of what God is working on in my life are those things for which the harm is not obvious to other people. Some things, like pride, might even be seen as advantages to others. While no fellow Christian might have their heart break seeing how these characteristics and behaviors harm me; God has a higher perspective, and His heart does break for the trouble I cause myself. So even these issues will get addressed if we all just stick with “loving the sinner” period.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink

May 20, 2009

Faith : Master/Teacher/Friend

My relationship with God is really three intertwined relationships:
- God is my master/lord and I am His servant
- God is my teacher and I am His student
- God is my friend/lover and I am His friend/lover
These are not different modalities where we operate as master/servant one moment and teacher/student the next. All three relationships are always a part of every one of our interactions.

The best picture of this kind of complex relationship I have seen is the one portrayed in the film “The Karate Kid” between Mr. Miyagi and young Daniel LaRusso. If you have never seen the film, I would recommend it (and not its sequels). In brief, Daniel is a teen who moves with his mother from New Jersey to Southern California after the death of his father. The maintenance man at the apartment complex they move into is the aging Mr. Miyagi from Okinawa. Daniel has the standard “new kid in the High School” problems and ends up incurring the wrath of a group of teens who study martial arts at a local dojo. On day while they are beating Daniel up, Mr. Miyagi shows up and utterly defeats the teens despite being outnumbered and several times their age. As a result, Daniel asks Mr. Miyagi to teach him martial arts. At first he refuses; but eventually agrees.

What follows is one of the classic sequences from the film. Mr. Miyagi takes Daniel to his house and proceed to have him spend days doing various chores: painting fences, waxing his antique car collection, etc. For each task there are some very specific instructions as to how it must be done (apply the wax counter-clockwise with his left hand, polish it off clockwise with his right hand). Eventually Daniel rebels, accusing Mr. Miyagi of not fulfilling their bargain, at which point the truth is revealed – all of the chores have actually been ways to build specific muscle groups (and muscle memory) that Daniel will need to defend himself. The two grow close and eventually compete against the teens in a tournament.

As I said, my relationship with God feels a lot like the kind of relationship shown between these two individuals in the film. I come to God to teach me how to live – how to be all I was meant to be. I go to God for this understanding because He designed me and because I know He loves me and wants the best for me. To learn what I must learn, God calls me to make him my Lord – to commit myself to be obedient to Him. God leads me to do things, and I try to follow His leading. Sometimes I do so grudgingly, sometimes I balk, sometimes I fail; but my intent is to be obedient to Him in all things. I often don’t understand why God asks me to do some things; but I try to obey regardless because I trust (have faith in) Him. What I often discover is that God has many reasons for asking me to do the things he asks me to do – they serve His kingdom but in the process they also serve to teach me to be a better person. There are times that I suddenly see God’s multiple purposes in something he asks me to do and it is very much like the “Show me: wax on, wax off” scenes in the movie. Through all this I have grown closer to God as my understanding and appreciation of His love for me grows and my love for Him grows as well.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink

May 22, 2009

Faith : Understanding Lordship

Throughout the New Testament people are told that to join in this new movement they need to establish, through trust, Jesus as their Lord and Savior. Now the “savior” part of that formula remains fairly easy to understand. While what Jesus saves us from and the means by which He does it are unique, the idea of someone coming and rescuing others from a dire situation remains a central part of our culture and the stories we tell.

The concept of Lordship is however a bit harder on the modern American audience.

We live in a society where we are governed by elected officials who we can vote out of office (if not impeach or recall) if we don’t like them. We work at jobs voluntarily, and if we don’t like out current job we can look for another one. I do acknowledge that some people are in circumstances where that may in fact not be practical; but the principles of our society say that no one is a slave and therefore everyone should be free to change jobs if they want. The reality is that most Americans have no direct experience with any relationship which resembles what the people 2000 years ago would have understood to be the meaning of saying “Jesus is Lord”. What’s more, all of our understandings of such relationships in the past have negative connotations – slavery, absolute monarchies, etc. – so even when we understand those terms we have a bias against applying them to ourselves today.

I believe this lack of understanding of Lordship is one of the factors which cripples the church in America and leads to our powerlessness in our communities. We embrace Jesus as our Savior but not our Lord; and without Lordship, God kingdom is not manifest. After all, what is the Kingdom of God beyond that realm in which He is accepted as Lord? We cannot expect God’s presence and power to be manifest where He is not allowed to reign.

Instead we have supposed Christians who are focused only on “what’s in it for them.” What they want is the reassurance that things will be OK between them and God after they die (“salvation”) and that a minimum of demands will be placed on them before they die. They understand that some changes will be required; but at some level they are looking the church that will ask as little as possible of them while providing the maximum in benefits. They want a church with excellent music, a dynamic preacher, a comforting message, lots of social activities; and most of all, a church that “stays in its place” on Sundays so they can do what they want the rest of the week. This is Christianity without Lordship.

However, to call Jesus Lord (as required by all of the New Testament authors) means to submit yourselves completely and utterly to God’s will for your life, no matter how inconvenient that might be. Back 2000 years ago people would understand that. Someone who served a lord was owned by them. They had no time of their own, no possessions beyond what their lord granted them. They lived to serve their lord. God has promised that for those who will make Him their Lord, He will save them and transform them into His image. What we gain in this transaction is without price; but the cost is our whole lives.

And it is only through people who actually make Jesus Lord is God’s Kingdom established. Once God has people who are completely sold out to Him, He can use them to demonstrate His compassion and His power to the world. God cannot do that through people for whom God is one of many competing priorities, people for which God must work around their schedules to find time for them to serve Him. He cannot show His power to the world through people who are only interested in God’s power for themselves.

We as the church in America must repent of our tendency to seek Jesus as our Savior and not our Lord. Perhaps when we do, we will begin to transform our communities again by showing them the greatness of God’s Kingdom.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink

May 25, 2009

Books , Faith : Christian Reading List

I often get asked, out of the many book I have read, which ones I would most recommend to other Christians to read. Now obviously we are all in different places in our journey with God, and so what books would be helpful to one individual might be different from those which would be helpful to someone else. Still there are certain books that I tend to turn to time and time again, and I have finally gotten around to organizing a formal list of highly recommended books.

To make this list, I looked through my shelf, my blog entries, and a log I have been keeping since November of books I have read. I initially started with 25 books I would recommend, wanted to get it down to a “top ten”, and finally compromised at 15 books. Here’s what I came up with:

“Repenting of Religion: Turning from Judgment to the Love of God” by Gregory A. Boyd
A great book that really gets to the root of how Christianity represents a fundamentally different world view, and how so much of what is called “Christianity” isn’t. If you want to read about a church that really applies these ideas, I’d suggest “No Perfect People Allowed” by John Burk.

“Searching for God Knows What” by Donald Miller
Christianity is about relationship, not religion. This book really captures that idea.

“Velvet Elvis: Repainting the Christian Faith” by Rob Bell
A great explanation of Christianity which uses new metaphors and also reconnects it with its Jewish root.

“The Sacred Romance: Drawing Closer To The Heart Of God” by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
A great “big picture” view of Christianity in the context of Eternity. Another book in this vein is “Epic”, also by Eldredge, and the DVD of Eldredge “performing” Epic is fantstic.

“Messy Spirituality” by Mike Yaconelli
A reminder that God has never been looking for perfect people (they don’t exist); but rather likes to collect around Himself spiritual misfits and losers who are willing to Follow Him.

“Start Here: Kingdom Essentials for Christians” by Don Willliams
A great answer to the question “OK, I’m saved. Now what?” This would likely be review to older Christians; but a very useful review.

“How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth” by Gordon D. Fee and Douglas Stuart
By far the best single book I have found about how to study the Bible. Raises all of the kinds of questions which should be asked when looking at any portion of the Bible.

“Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship With God” by Dallas Willard
God’s intent is to communicate with every Christian as a normal part of their lives. This is the best book I have found on that subject.

“The Rest of the Gospel: When the Partial Gospel Has Worn You Out” by Dan Stone, David Gregory, and Sally Rackets
We were never meant to live our lives as Christians in our own strength. God’s intent was that we would live victorious lives by the power of Jesus living in and through us. This book explores exactly what that means.

“This Beautiful Mess: Practicing the Presence of the Kingdom of God” by Rick McKinley
A great teaching on what it means to demonstrate God’s Kingdom to a hurting world

“The Blue Parakeet: Rethinking How You Read the Bible” by Scot McKnight
Another great book on how to study the Bible with a different style than Fee and Stuart’s book above.

“The Myth of a Christian Nation: How the Quest for Political Power Is Destroying the Church” by Gregory A. Boyd
A must-read for any American Christian. All about how Christians should view the relationship of Church and State.

“Blue Like Jazz: Nonreligious Thoughts on Christian Spirituality” by Donald Miller
A very honest and open memoir of one Christian coming to understand the faith. I recommend this book both in terms of what the author learns and in his willingness to talk about his life, faults and all. He’s a great example of what Christia transparency should be.

“Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens” by Neil Cole
A great book on some alternative ways to “do church”. I recommend this highly to anyone who thinks that your typical Sunday church service is the only way to do things. I would also recommend (with some reservations) “Reimagining Church: Pursuing the Dream of Organic Christianity” by Frank Viola.

“Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile” by Rob Bell and Don Golden
A great Christian perspective on activism - how we are to serve in the world’s redemption, not through secular means by by the Kingdom of God.

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

May 27, 2009

Web : In praise of TED

Back in 1984, Richard Saul Wurman (an interesting guy in his own right) started the TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) conference which has been held annually since 1990. Each year 40-50 people from a variety of disciplines (science, engineering, technology, business, politics, arts, entertainment, philosophy, etc.) are invited to give “the talk of their lives” in 18 minutes or less. The goal is to get great ideas out into a forum where as many people as possible can have access to them. All of the talks are available on the web for free. I love surfing through their archives and watching the videos – I’ve never spent time on their site and not come away informed, inspired, and entertained. It sure beats channel surfing on TV.

In my opinion, two things make TED a success. One is the diversity of speakers. While the original charter was “Technology, Entertainment, and Design”, the scope of the talks have gone well beyond that to anyone who has (as the motto of the conference says) “ideas worth spreading”. You’d have to be brain dead to not find someone on their site that you would think is worth watching. The second reason I believe they are a success is the time limit. Talks are limited to 18 minutes and most are around 15 with some as short as 7-8. The time limit forces the speakers to focus on the core of their idea and to really think through what is important. It also means that you can watch one of their talks without making a big time commitment. I can sit at my desk and watch a couple over lunch without problems.

I thought about including some suggestions of my favorite talks; but it was just too hard to choose – they are all so good. So instead I’ll mention some of what I think were the oddest TED talks I’ve watched:

- Clifford Stoll on ... everything
- Michael Moschen juggles rhythm and motion
- Mary Roach: 10 things you didn't know about orgasm

Now if you want to look for worthwhile talks to start with, the TED home page has a bunch of selectors for things like “most draw dropping”, “most inspiring”, “most persuasive”, and “most courageous” which tend to be a pretty good indicators. If you spend any about of time watching YouTube videos, I would suggest that your time would be better spent watching TED (which, by the way, are also all available on YouTube).

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink

May 29, 2009

Life : Keeping up the pace

When I switched to posting updates about my everyday life onto Facebook, I knew there was a risk that I would not be able to keep up the three post a week pace on my blog. So far I have succeeded; but there have been times it was a close-run thing (such as my creating this post to finish off this week). I have some ideas for next week which may yield another trio of posts; but at some point I will run out of steam. When that time comes, I will likely to switch from three days a week (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) to two days a week (Monday, Thursday) until I have accumulated a bit of a backlog of posts to buffer slow weeks.

So, consider this fair warning - some Wednesday you are likely to find no post. When that happens, look for a post on Thursday and none on Friday.

Posted by Steven at 05:00 AM | Permalink