The Parable of the Mice in the Piano

Or, "The Fallacy of Nothing-Buttery." 
 

As related by Mark Potter:

There was once a family of mice. They lived in this grand piano. And they had lived there for many generations of mice. Nobody knew that they lived inside the grand piano, but these mice, this family of mice, for many generations had loved living on the inside of the grand piano.

The reason why they loved this so much was because they thrilled to the music of the Grand Musician. They never knew quite when he was going to play but when he would play the mice loved it.

And then one day this intrepid mouse climbed up into a part of the piano where no other mouse had ever dared to go before, and he came back with a report. And he said, "Oh, dear family of mice! My brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, mother and father. There is no Grand Musician!

"There are only hammers."

The Trinity, as a JSON object

{What : {Who,
         Who : {What,
                what},
         Who}}

"The Trinity is three Whos in one What, and Jesus is two Whats in one Who." - Dr. Jan van Vliet

i.e.
{God : {Father,
        Son : {God,
               man},
        Spirit}}

Note that even in this representation God would seem to "go infinite."

An Insulated Life

I live an insulated life.

I saw one of the most horrifying sights of my life on Tuesday. While driving to meet a friend, as I approached the intersection of Springfield and Baltimore Avenues I saw a car blocking the way, as if it had stopped mid-turn.

It turned out that was exactly what happened. Crumpled in the road and motionless lay an African American - man or woman, I could not say. I rolled down my window and asked if I could help. A man stood with his cell phone and explained in stammering, disjointed phrases that he had been turning and hadn't seen the pedestrian before hitting him.

He had already called 911. I wanted to do something, but my friend was waiting for me, other pedestrians were converging on the spot to similarly offer assistance, and I figured my presence was only blocking the way. So I left.

The image has stayed with me. I do not go through the intersection without thinking of the person who lay there, and the poor man who could not comprehend his accidental deed.

I compare those images with images of the earthquake in Haiti this week, after which not just one but thousands of people lay broken in the streets. Natural disasters are unthinkable in Philadelphia, and near-instant mass death had occurred while I cooked jambalaya and listened to This American Life.

My first thought was that I was glad I was not there. I could not understand the random chance that once again left me born to such a comfortable life, but since I had that privilege I was relieved to possess it.

My second thought was that I wished I could be there. While I have indeed been blessed with the means to avoid most hardship, I serve a God who says that he who seeks to save his life will lose it, and he who loses his life for His sake will save it for eternal life.

The fact is that while none of us can choose the hand we are dealt in this life, we are completely responsible for how we play that hand. And my God also says that from he to whom much has been given, much will be required.

This same God had complete freedom to remain in the very seat of heaven, waited on by angels and the whole heavenly host, sharing in the perfect loving company of the Godhead. Yet he freely chose to be born among the lowest of all people and ultimately die literally the most painful death imaginable for my sake.

Finally, he tells me that just as he was sent by his father, so he sends me. I cannot pretend to understand or receive his work for me if I take that gift and sit on it. And so I would follow him, to the ravaged streets of Haiti or to wherever else he might be found.

Yet the scene from this week challenges me. This small intrusion of reality on the road between the tricked out kitchen in which I eat and the gigantic iMac screen at which I work shows me how little accustomed I am to facing Death and Pain. I wonder - would I really follow him?

Most Americans like me will cope the best way they know how, by text messaging a $10 donation to a relief organization. I wonder if it is enough.

Lord, have mercy.

Prayer

According to the New York Times:

"'This is a day of mourning for all of Germany,' Chancellor Angela Merkel said in a brief statement in Berlin. 'Our thoughts are with the friends and families.' "

It's probably better than paying lip service to belief in God when no belief exists. Still, how empty is that comfort?

McAvoy: 1. Satan: 0

How much does the natural order of our world conspire to keep people from reading the Bible?

You might answer, "Not at all." Certainly, nothing in physics would give any reason to believe such a thing. But years of experience show me otherwise.

Take last Friday, for instance. I was on my way from Jersey to Philly to meet a friend for lunch. It poured rain, and while traffic moved fine on the other side of Rt. 70, I could have probably covered more distance swimming than driving. Short a swimsuit, I inched along, frustrated at my growing tardiness.

Then, I had an idea.

As I said, it's my belief that forces within us and without us strive to keep us from reading the Bible (or praying). But I had my Bible right with me. And what better thing to do in traffic than to, as they say, get in the Word?

So I got my Bible out. I opened to Luke. I balanced it on my steering wheel. I started reading aloud.

Six verses in, the previously unmovable traffic parted like the Red Sea, and I was on my way to hand drawn noodles!

Advent Conspiracy

I don't have the words to express how beautiful this video and its vision are to me:



Yes, please.

Thanks to jaeyde for showing this to me.

A Friend in Dialogue is a Friend Indeed

Handsomer men would be hard to find.

Jonathan and I both like to think. We also like to talk. We also have amazing chemistry. We also properly spell, capitalize, and punctuate text messages. Put it all together, add some intangibles, and you get some really great exchanges. Let me offer a sample:

Me: Wow, blogging about evolution is really exhilarating for me. I'm not sure why, but I hope it doesn't spill into giving the issue more centrality than it merits.

Jon: Yeah, I hear you. I think it's a little too emotionally charged in some circles.

Me: Yes, people perhaps equate fighting for Jesus with fighting against Darwin.

Jon: Not to mention the personal dimension. For me I mean. And I think it contributes to anti intellectualism among Christians.

Me: YES. I HATE anti-intellectualism among Christians. It is one of our big failures communally.

Jon: It's definitely an area where we play into the narrative of the world.

...

Jon: Yeah. One thing that's been hard for me since high school is not being the scientist in the room.

Me: Guess you will have to fit in a few physics classes [in grad school]. At least audit.

Jon: I don't know. While I like being a poly math, I definitely believe in division of labor. I want to be thinking econ 16 hours a day.

Me: Hah, that's your econ speaking. Try some science and you'll change your tune. That's funny because I love the idea of a "renaissance thinker."

Jon: So do I, but in today's world very often a renaissance thinker is a shallow thinker. It's just not possible to know everything that deeply.

Me: But is the integral of knowledge the same? Can one assign relative worth to breadth vs depth? Is there a place for each? Ephesians 3:18

Jon: You have to go deep to reach the frontiers of knowledge. Although sometimes ideas from other fields have applications in your field, you need depth in your own field to recognize that opportunity.

Me: In other words, take a 17 c.u. major as well as one or two courses in seven varied sectors?

Jon: Well, an undergraduate degree rarely takes you to the frontiers of knowledge. But yes, the principle is there.

Me: I do think in modern academia there is an idolatry that says new knowledge = progress, and that does not necessarily follow. Let's synthesize what we know.

What a friend!

Why I am Not an Evolutionist #1

Or, "Charles Darwin Lied."* Part one of an at-least-three-part series.

Calvin has a hairier face than most.

First, a disclaimer: while I have a modest background in science, that science is not biology, and I am by no means an expert in these matters.

(1) There are a whole host of aspects to life that, while wonderfully aesthetic, imply no obvious reproductive advantage. One can still attempt to explain them through the framework of natural selection and random mutation, and indeed many do attempt so, but these attempts often strike me as strained, and are circular themselves inasmuch they seek to offer evidence for evolution.

A few examples:

• Forgive me for allowing most of the details to escape me, but I remember reading several years ago about a prize awarded to a man for thinking of an explanation for why people aren't nearly as hairy as other apes.
  
  His prize-worthy idea? Perhaps mothers preferred babies who were less hairy and were thus more likely to care for them.
  
  That's it.
  
  My problem with this reasoning is that it could be used to justify any trait unique to humans. Who knows what would be possible if our great-grandmothers had different tastes! Perhaps we would all be able to sing "Do your ears hang low?" with much more gusto. Perhaps Chewbacca would exist in reality and not in myth.


• The peacock's tail is a prime example of what is called "sexual selection:" the trait makes the peacock no more fit physically, indeed less so, but nevertheless makes him more fit in the evolutionary sense because peahens are impressed by peacocks with more impressive tails. The tails are said to signal fitness, perhaps because the man is able to survive despite the handicap.
  
  The logic strikes me as just a bit twisted. He proves he has good genes by surviving despite having bad genes (which give him a functionally useless display of feathers).
  
  (And why should peahens prefer mates with more impressive tails to begin with? Would this trait itself not have to evolve?)
  
  Another challenge is presented by the knowledge that it seems peahen mate selection is rather independent of peacock tail impressiveness. For the evolutionary argument to hold up in light of this knowledge, peahen preference toward impressive tails must have evolved some time ago, then evolved away again after the men had gone through all the effort of evolving their tails. Women are so hard to please.
  
  Consider, for a moment, an alternative explanation: Peacock tails are beautiful, and this fact has something to do with their origin.**
  
  
• As a final example, consider breasts in women, a topic upon which my male readers should have no trouble focusing. Believe it or not, their presence presents a significant challenge to evolutionary theorists.
  
  The story is similar to the puzzle of why we aren't so hairy. Put simply, most female mammals develop breasts only after giving birth, and their breasts remain only while nursing. Only in human women do they develop first and for always at adolescence, then further around the time of birth. Breasts in other mammals are decidedly unattractive to males, since they signal that the female is not in much of a state to bear young.
  
  Why should this be so? There are evolutionary ideas. Perhaps breasts evolved so that babies would have an easier time nursing. I think it was Stephen Jay Gould who posited that they developed so men would have an easier time getting used to mating face-to-face (which raises the question of why people evolved the propensity to mate face-to-face). Evidently, our great-grandfathers much preferred their wives' posteriors to their faces. Men are so insensitive.
  
  But these ideas are just speculation. In short, there is no good reason why this trait ought to evolve, from a Darwinian perspective. One can posit, "There must have been a good reason, because this trait clearly evolved!" But that is circular reasoning and placing faith in Nothing.
  
  And so I say, only one third in jest, is it not evident that breasts are a great gift from God to men, women, and babies alike?
  

  "I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment..." (Ezekiel 16:7a).

In short, the world is full of incredible beauty, and this beauty is very difficult to explain with a framework that only rewards survival, like a society of Van Goghs which cares nothing for its artists.

Rather, it is evident to me that many things are beautiful because they were made with beauty in mind.**

*Not especially true, as there is a world of difference between lying and simply being mistaken. But it goes well with another recent post of mine.

**This, of course, requires that beauty exists in an intrinsic, objective sense.***

***This, of course, requires that there exist someone with the authority to set such a standard. You can see where I'm going...

Charles Darrow Lied

My school sent me today to a seminar on classroom management in Atlantic City, New Jersey. The seminar was interesting and useful, but the most lasting impression was made upon me by
a lunchtime stroll down the boardwalk.

Atlantic City, if you didn't know, is the inspiration for the game Monopoly, hence my taking a walk on the boardwalk and passing things like St. James's Place. The atmosphere of the city exudes that same kind of promise - fortune and thus happiness are only a few rolls of the dice away.

The boardwalk promises its own romance. Start with a clear autumn day on the warm side of brisk. Add the splendor of the Atlantic Ocean and the associated salty air. Provide a walkway from which to take it all in, add in quaint shops selling inexpensive and nostalgic American food, and you've got a recipe for sepia-toned enjoyment.

The lords over this enterprise are the casinos, who with straight, even grinning faces ignore the obvious fact that the system is rigged against you. No one seems to notice.

I found a few other things on my stroll. New Jersey, unlike Nevada, stops short of legalizing prostitution in addition to gambling. So instead of being solicited by women in front of brothels, I was solicited by women in front of massage parlors. It seems to be human nature to buy all varieties of sensual pleasure where one sort is already available.

Fortune tellers abound as well, offering such ridiculous methods as phrenology. One modestly proclaimed, "Specializing in solving all problems. Health, financial, and love."

Mixed in without explanation is the New Jersey Korean War memorial. The only people I saw there were Korean. It was cool.

Benches on the boardwalk have not one but two arm rails between the outer two, creating three distinct seats, and eliminating any possibility of being used as a bed. The memory of one homeless man sitting on one makes me think of what happens in Monopoly when you land on that last hotel property whose rent you can't afford.

On my way back I attempted to enjoy some of the aforementioned nostalgic American food, two hot dogs and some french fries, out on the boardwalk. I was foiled by belligerent seagulls, clustering and squawking more and more around me. I got up right as one lunged at my fries. Later another one smacked me in the head with its wing. I couldn't help but think of how birds in Scripture represent the powers of Satan, as when Abram drove them away in Genesis 15:11.

One contrast surpassed all of these in the disgust it brought me. At the start and at the end of my walk I passed a beggar woman. She stood and sang, completely tone deaf, beating for percussion on a plastic bucket that looked like a sand castle toy. Most street performers are musically gifted, and her complete lack of talent heightened the sense of desperation she conveyed.

A few feet up from her, another beggar danced, without coordination, displaying some physical deformity. It is hard to know whether to call her a girl or a woman, because in body she was dressed and styled like an eight-year-old, and in face she looked over forty.

The backdrop against which these beggars stood, and the filler for all of these scenes, was the casino crowd. It was easier for me to understand the presence of residents and workers, who for whatever brokenness at least seem to belong there. But, in the midst of that whole scene, the scores of white senior citizens chasing Borgata and lewd comedians like Robin Williams raised the largest sense of outrage and futility that I felt.

The way I felt about all of this didn't really hit me until about an hour ago, several hours and a nap after returning. In a different situation I might shout and cry. Instead I raise this small outcry against Trump's stronghold on the beach.

The New Testament asserts that all of creation was made by and for Jesus Christ, and that one day he will return to assert his ownership of every square inch. While I feel powerless against that monstrous boardwalk, I long for the day when he will put an end to all of its lies and all of its pain.

God of the Forgotten

Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,

to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin's name was Mary.
Luke 1:26-27

I've been thinking a good deal lately about groups of forgotten people. In particular, I've thought of a neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia and an island in Alaska.

The Philly neighborhood is one row of houses on one side of one block of one street. It's nearly surrounded by commercial establishments like car dealerships and the like, and it borders Kensington Avenue, which is a major commercial strip. Every four minutes the Market-Frankford El goes past overhead. Many of the people who live there are related, and in the past even more were.

About twelve years ago, prostitutes moved into the area. It makes sense that they would because, as I said, not many people live there. There isn't a whole lot the residents can do, other than call the police and hope they come. Their biggest concerns are for their children, and not just that they are exposed to such things at a young age; the prostitutes' used drug needles litter the sidewalks and the overgrown grass.

As powerless as the residents may be to drive this blight from their midst, the prostitutes for their part seem rather powerless themselves. Young prostitutes are too young - 15, 16 - and look a grotesque parody of little girls playing dress-up. Old prostitutes look too old. The memory of one limping past to take respite in her car without a license plate is particularly striking.

Angoon, Alaska is home to 500 or so Tlingit (pronounced Klinkit) Native Americans. The island has one gas station and one store, and approximately 25 people actually have jobs. The rest live off of two sources: money every month from the U.S. government, and an incredible abundance of marine life.

I don't know the history behind the money from the government, but I wonder at its purpose. What is it, hush money? It reminds me of a tagline from a game I used to play: "Sorry we shelled your village. Here's some gold."*

As often occurs among Native Americans and among people with little to do in general, alcoholism and drug addiction are dominant forces on the island.

I can't but wonder if "forgotten" people like these two groups actually outnumber the "remembered." How many suffer and no one knows of them, let alone cares? We are people who exalt the exalted, and humble the humbled.

And so, I think it not insignificant that Jesus was born to parents from Nazareth of Galilee. To get an idea of a modern day equivalent, imagine something like Hicktown, West Virginia. A small town in an insignificant region.

God remembers forgotten people all through the first chapter of Luke. All who are mentioned - an old priest, his barren wife, a young girl - receive enormous blessing, their prayers heard (v. 13), their reproach taken away (v. 25), and their lowly state regarded (v. 48). They were each in time filled with the Holy Spirit (v. 67, 41, 35) and received advance notice of the amazing work that Mary's baby would do (v. 69, 43, 32).

God remembers forgotten people today. He sends his people to them and stirs them to love them as he does. If this were not so, I would know of none of the things about which I write today.

I pray that the God of Nazareth in Luke would show himself more to be the God of Kensington and the God of Angoon in 2008. As he did then, I pray he would send his angels and his saints to prepare the way of the Lord.

Don't give up now.
A break in the clouds -
We will be found.

Rescue is coming.
Rescue is coming.

-David Crowder Band

*Wow, I was more right than I thought. From wikipedia:

In 1882, a whaling vessel's harpoon charge accidentally misfired and exploded, killing a crewmember who was a Tlingit shaman, or medicine man. Villagers demanded payment of 200 blankets to the man's family, as was customary. The Northwest Trading Company sought help from the United States Navy at Sitka. Angoon and a nearby summer camp were shelled and destroyed by the Navy Cutter U.S.S. Corwin.

...

In 1973, Angoon won a U. S. $90,000 settlement from the United States Government for the 1882 bombardment.

Consumers, Producers, and Capitalists

Consumerism is an oft-criticized force in these blogging circles. There can also be a backlash from those who feel such critiques are implicitly critiques of capitalism itself. I'm thinking of this guy.

At any rate, I recently came across an elegant statement of why consumerism is bad. In the short book "Handoff," Jeff Myers says that today's youth have been "raised to consume rather than produce" (92).

In this way of looking at it, consumerism is not a choice made in a vacuum. It is the flip side of production. It is taking rather than giving.

As for the assertion that today's youth are more consumeristic than previous generations, that at least seems a reasonable hypothesis. In my picture of the past (by definition idealized and incomplete), it seems like Americans found their identity more in their occupation or their trade. Just look at all of the surnames that are trades - Mason, Baker, Smith, and so on.

In college I noticed people still defined themselves by their (future) occupation, but I think more indirectly. People want to be investment bankers not for the sake of the work that investment bankers do, but for the lifestyle that they lead. In other words, not for what they produce, but for what they consume.

Now, I don't think it's right to find identity in an occupation. The Christian finds his identity rooted in Christ, and what the Gospel says he is - a saved sinner, a child of God. There is no need, nor any real possibility, of adding to this with our own works.

But there is real value in being creative (in the most Genesis 1 sense of the word), in doing good works for the Lord. In fact, these are to adorn our lives as sweet offerings to God, and we look forward to a reward for faithful stewardship.

Consumption in itself isn't bad - for, as Jesus says, the laborer is worthy of his wages (Luke 10:7). But as a mode for finding our identity, it is quite dangerous.

In sum, consumerism is empty because it finds identity in taking. "Producerism" is still off the mark, but perhaps less so.

And this need not be a critique of capitalism, which is based on the premise that we all benefit from exchange - in other words, from simultaneous giving and taking.

Meditative Thought

All that is good is from Him;
All that is from Him is good.

Worshiping At c

Ah, Physics 364. Those were the days.

You are moving at the speed of light.

So am I. So is everything.

If that sounds preposterous, you're only thinking in three dimensions, while neglecting the fourth: time.

If you're acquainted with Einstein's Theory of Special Relativity, or at least some decent science fiction, you know that the faster someone moves through space, the slower that person moves through time.*

The reason everyday experience doesn't reflect this truth is we never approach speeds through space where this is relevant. But if you were to travel at the speed of light (impossible, I know, but forget that for a moment), you would actually cease to move through time at all.

A technical way of phrasing this idea would be to say that the magnitude of our velocity through all four dimensions of space and time is a constant, c, the speed of light.

Why do I mention this? Well, for one I find it fascinating. Maybe you find it less fascinating, and that's why I'm the one with a physics degree. At any rate, the concept is directly analogous to one about which I thought in church today.

That other concept relates to worship. God commands, in both the Old and New Testaments, that his followers should love him with their entire being: heart, soul, mind, and strength. In short, their entire lives should be worship.**

Such demands of devotion are not unique to Christianity and Judaism. It is often noted that religious believers of all stripes have in common the desire to "open themselves" to a "higher power," whatever that means. And it is here that many atheists find a great advantage for themselves. That advantage is freedom from worship.

If there is no higher power, as atheists believe, then all worshipers are wasting their time and, if they're sincere enough, their lives. By sidestepping this flaw in human nature, atheists are free to invest their devotion elsewhere. They thus lead tremendously more efficient lives; rather than spend one hundred percent of their energies on a God, as the Bible would command, they spend zero.

Such is the atheist-humanist gospel. In this view, religion is the great problem, because people waste their lives on it and even kill each other over it. If people could simply accept that there is no God, they say, we would be able to build the true future of our species. (Not that we'll be able to enjoy it; by then any of us will be luxuriating in oblivion.)

However, such thinking is based on the flawed preconception that freedom from worshiping God is freedom from worshiping. It might seem to be true, just as it might seem that by sitting still one is not moving. However, just as a stationary person continues at the speed of light through time, we all give our entire being away. It is our choice whether that gift is to God or to something which ultimately perishes.

There are a host of things which people worship yet aren't God. Some devote themselves to the pursuit of money, or power, or a legacy, or another human being. We're all familiar with these things, yet we're perhaps not as familiar with calling them what they are: idols. Stand-ins for God.

Everyone, even those who profess to devote themselves to God, is affected by the idols' shiny allure. And I know by experience that silver and gold and all their kin are far harsher masters than is my God.

Atheists are correct to observe that fundamental to human nature is a desire to worship; they are incorrect to disregard it. Unfortunately, the belief that there is no God and ultimately no purpose to anything, precludes them from considering the purpose of this facet of nature.

The clues are right there. God has sewn them into every stitch of creation. When we resist following them to their natural conclusion, we gain not freedom but bondage. That is to say nothing of answering to a being who is owed our all and finds us delinquent in our account.

*If you're not familiar with that idea, you're certainly familiar of animations where characters stretch very long when they are moving very fast. That effect, called length contraction, is intimately related to the one of which I speak: time dilation.
**This doesn't mean that his people aren't to love anyone or anything else, as is made clear by the accompanying command to love one's neighbors as oneself. But that love and devotion must always fall under the heading of love for and devotion to God.
***In light of God's just demands for our entire being, John Piper has advice: Don't Waste Your Life.

San Francisco: Model of Eden?

Little known Bible fact: the Earth as it existed in the time of Adam and Eve was without rain. Why?

...For the Lord God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground;

but a mist went up from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground.
Genesis 2:5b-6

For any who don't have any idea what that would be like - I encourage you to check out San Francisco to get the gist of it!

Shrouded in fog.

Many believe, since there's no more mention of rain until Noah, that the rains of the Flood were the first that the world ever experienced. That would make Noah's display of faith that much more impressive!

God: Noah, I want you to build a boat. It's going to rain for forty days and forty nights.

Noah: You got it. What's rain?

Even a Few

In need of hope.

I'm reading a great book about the role of Christians in the city. Author Ray Bakke, raised in rural post-World War II Washington state, became the reluctant pastor of a congregation of hundreds at the age of 23. In the 1960's he moved to Chicago, an explosive place at an explosive time, and remained there for the next 30 years.

In a chapter entitled "Can We Save a City Like Sodom?" Bakke discusses the transformational power of even a few Christians living in and for a city, as well as the widespread withdrawal of Christians from cities in the second half of the twentieth century.

Bakke writes:

When I became a pastor in Chicago [in 1965], my first community service was the funeral of the neighboring pastor and wife two blocks down the street from the church. They had been stabbed to death during the night in what is still an unsolved crime. One of their three preschool children stopped the postman at the door the following morning and plaintively asked, "Can you wake up my daddy?" As I described the situation to my mother later that week, she asked - doubtless thinking of my own little boys - "How long are you going to stay in Chicago?"

I replied, "As long as I can count on other believers here. If I can't, I'll run far and fast."

From Ray Bakke, "A Theology As Big As the City" (1997), pg. 41

When a 23-year-old aspiring teacher was murdered in Philly recently, my mom asked me if I really wanted to live in Philadelphia. I told her that if everyone who was able to leave the city were to do so, things would be even worse for those who couldn't get out.

Bakke believes that the welfare of a city is contingent on the presence of God's people within it. Indeed, he notes Jesus calls his followers salt (a preservative) and light (exposing, eliminating darkness). Genesis teaches us that Sodom* could have been spared by the presence of ten of God's followers (18:22-33). Indeed, in Jeremiah we learn that Jerusalem could have been saved by even one seeker of the truth (5:1).

So I think Bakke is onto something. If God is who the Bible says he is, cities desperately need His people, any of His people, to live in and for them, to death if necessary. And those who do so must unite in their purpose, or all will be adrift.

These principles are the those that lead me to seek employment in Philadelphia now that I have graduated. It's time to put my money where my mouth is.


On a final note, contrast the importance of this call with the widespread response of the church when things have gotten rough in the cities:

I don't need to tell American Christians that we live in a day of large-scale Christian withdrawal from large sections of our cities. The people running away from Los Angeles are bumping into the people running away from Chicago, somewhere in Colorado's pristine mountains, or so it seems at times. The results: social gaps grow, God is furious, and our nation is at risk (44).

We have a history of flight and failure, not to atone for (for Jesus has done that), but to learn from. Let us boldly approach the throne of grace and find our Lord's heart for his city:

Can we save a city like Sodom? Of course we can, and we must. Thankfully the preserving effect of a few righteous people is much more widespread than we might think (46).

"For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be removed and be cast into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says."
Mark 11:23

*It is a common misconception that God destroyed Sodom primarily because of sexual immorality in the city. Ezekiel 16:48-50 reveals that the primary reason God destroyed it was that though the people of the city were economically prosperous, they did not help the poor and needy. Is there any city today in which this neglect is not widespread?

Career Discernment: A Christian Perspective

What will we do?

Photo courtesy Jay Hiatt.

Po Bronson was not the first person to ask, "What Should I Do with My Life?" Nor shall he be the last. After interviewing hundreds of people from many walks of life, Bronson's basic conclusion was, "Do what you love."

Dakota Pippins, Mid-Atlantic Regional Director for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship, offers a more nuanced view for Christians. Dakota might say, "Find a purpose-driven career at the intersection of your creative and your redemptive passions."

What does all of that mean? Let's unpack it slowly.

First, let's talk about the purpose-driven career, as opposed to the career-driven purpose. Note that in the former, the purpose comes first, while in the latter, career comes first. In the latter, a well-meaning person chooses a career and then seeks to shoehorn that career into service for the Kingdom of God.

Many of us have heard that it's possible to be an investment banker, or a janitor, or a lawyer, or a professional football player - just about anything - and still devote one's career wholly to the Lord. That's true, but Dakota would say Christians often run into problems when this career goal is given primacy - in other words, when one's career choice drives one's purpose.

The problem with this situation is that a person's ability to take godly risk is minimized. If a career choice is taken as a fundamental presupposition, then when a person is faced with a choice between maintaining security in that career or risking it for the Kingdom, he or she will have a much harder time putting the career on the line. On the other hand, if his or her career is merely one expression of God-given talents and passions, then he or she will have a much easier time making the right choice. This idea is what is meant by a purpose-driven* career.

Dakota also says that those with career-driven purposes can face issues of guilt for having based their decision on their own desires, rather than on a process surrendered to the Lord.

So career-driven purposes have the potential to become idols, while purpose-driven careers are part of a life wholly surrendered.

What, then, is meant by finding a career at the intersection of creative and redemptive passions? To illustrate this concept, Dakota turns to that pillar of set theory used most by second graders, the Venn diagram:

Try not to get distracted by all of the colors.

Granted, this Venn diagram is a three-fer and thus more complicated than we normally encounter, but try to keep up.

According to Dakota, three forces govern Christians' career decisions. They are creative passions, sinful motivations, and redemptive passions.

Creative passions are basically things that you are good at. The concept of these comes out of Genesis 1:28, when God blessed Adam and Eve and commissioned them to, "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth."

Creative passions are what work was before the Fall. They are described perfectly in a famous statement from Chariots of Fire: "God made me fast, and when I run, I feel His pleasure." Maybe you have a love for accounting. Maybe knitting. I love computer programming. These are all creative passions.

Likewise, we are all familiar with sinful motivations. Desire for human approval; love of money; desire to build an earthly legacy. These motivations came in the picture at the Fall. Sinful motivations are static in the airwaves of communication between a person and God. It is harder to hear and understand his voice when they are present.

Third, redemptive passions are desires to join Jesus in his work of restoring this fallen world according to the vision of the Gospel. By very nature, these passions are developed after one already has a saving relationship with Christ. These might include wanting to share the Good News with people in the Middle East, or wanting to bring together children of different socio-economic backgrounds in the equality that only the Cross offers. One of my own redemptive passions is to see all of God's peoples live together in one body, retaining distinct identities yet being one in the Spirit of the Lord.

Most people, Dakota says, choose a career that lies in the orange zone of the diagram, combining both creative passions and sinful motivations. Maybe you wield logic like a fencer wields a sword and you want to make a lot of money. So you become a lawyer. This kind of path is most natural to follow, but it feeds appetites which should be starved and misses the mark of following Christ's voice in all facets of life.

Adding redemptive passions to the mix focuses our creative passions toward ushering in the Kingdom of God. However, if sinful motivations are still present, we attempt to serve two masters, which as we learned is impossible (Luke 16:13). You cannot try to build orphanages in Jamaica while trying to make a name for yourself; if you do, you are a clanging cymbal (1 Corinthians 13:1-3). So the center of the Venn diagram is not an acceptable final destination.

Truly godly career discernment occurs in the purple region intersecting creative and redemptive passions. Take what you're good at. Take what you want to do for Jesus. Put them together. Voila! Purpose-driven career.

Many look at career discernment as trying to find the one job to which God has called them. That idea does not flow from the picture presented here. God will take and use mightily anything from that magic purple zone, and the choice is really up to us. "Opening doors and closing doors isn't the primary way God helps in discernment," says Dakota.

In this choice there is freedom. Rather than struggling to remain on some sort of career tightrope, the theoretical One Right Path, God invites us to join him in discovering how to redeem the world. Yeah God!

There you have it. Examine your motivations. Be wary of career-driven purposes. Ask God to show you your redemptive passions, and to adjust the size of the three circles. Go for the purple. Anywhere in the purple.

And the world better watch out, because you bout to catch fire.

Ben finds the intersection of his creative and redemptive passions.
Photo courtesy Ellen Williams.

Wise and miscellaneous points from Dakota's presentation:

• Creative-redemptive overlap isn't always direct. Professors who share the Gospel in closed countries are an example - here the creative passion is the gateway to the redemptive one.
• Filling in the three circles of the Venn diagram is a helpful and discerning exercise. Try it. Examine yourself. Ask God. Ask others.
• Don't be the kind of person who says in college, "I'm not going to give now, but I will when I have money." It's not going to happen.
• To that end, get started managing your money now. If you don't know how, read Getting a Grip On Your Money by William C. Wood. I can lend it to you.
• There's nothing wrong in principle with having lots of income. Says Dakota, "I'm a big fan of income." But he says it's very rare to meet people who both make a lot and give a lot.
• "Wherever you are in life, spend a lot of time interacting with people who have a lot less than you."
• Shadowing people in a career you're thinking about is a great idea. Why not get an idea of what it's like before spending three years in grad school, only to discover that animal husbandry, at times, stinks?
• Not everything we are good at will end up in our careers. It's okay. I don't have to chug milk for a living.**
• The Settlers of Catan is a worthy and enjoyable game for men and women alike.

Thanks, Dakota!
Photo courtesy Ben Hanna.

*Not to be mistaken for The Purpose Driven Life.
**But I could.

[Note: This essay was adapted from a talk given by Dakota Pippins to Penn InterVarsity on May 16, 2008. Dakota has graciously allowed me to attempt this distillation.]

E-mail to Penn InterVarsity, 5/31/08

The visual representation of an abstract concept! Ahhhh!

Subject: Summer Reading

Hello friends,

I write to you this afternoon from my porch in southeastern Pennsylvania. Thunderstorms from earlier have rolled away and it's fresh and cool and pretty out.

You may have heard us at various times in the previous year prattle on about the importance of community. You may not have quite understood what the big deal was. It seems a simple concept, and our emphasis on it may not seem very profound. After all, don't we all live in community? Our school is in the city, and most of us further live in communities within College Houses.

The truth is that while community is a really simple idea, when it functions it has profound power to transform those who live in it. Community is not just an agglomeration of people; it's what occurs when those people take on a collective identity and life together. In real sense they become part of one another and their web of interactions changes all who are involved.

"Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another." - Proverbs 27:17

That might sound a tad on the creepy side to you. I think twinges of creepiness come from examples we've seen where acquiring a collective identity has meant relinquishing an individual one. We've seen streams of Nazis marching in lockstep. Communist propaganda seems to advocate this relinquishment. And there's always the Borg Collective from Star Trek.

But the paradox of Christian community is that individuals lose none of their individuality in joining it. On the contrary, as we collectively acquire more of an identity together, our individual identities are actually enhanced. We become more ourselves.

This is the mystery that we are talking about when we encourage community. It's something that must be experienced to be fully understood, but take my word for it when I say it's a marvelous thing indeed.

"If one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together.
Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it. " - 1 Corinthians 12:26-27
(Read all of 1 Corinthians 12:4-27 for all of the classical Biblical passage on community.)

I write this to all of you today to invite you into a facet of our community that you can participate in even over the summer. I'm of course talking about - blogging!

Blogging is something I'm passionate about. A group of blogs can provide many of the same functions as an in-person community, and in some cases they do an even better job.

Blogs can be incubators of discourse. They allow people to present ideas in a format often better thought out and more communicative than in-person discussion. Comments sections and other blogs allow people to respond and have conversation.

Posters and readers alike learn and develop ideas significantly faster than is often possible in person. The result? We learn more about who we are, who we'd like to be, and what we want to do in the world. Iron sharpens iron.

Now, our in-person community of InterVarsity also has a collection of blogs associated with some of its members. As is also evident when we come together in person, they display the wonderful variety in individual identity that God has given each of us.

As I said, these blogs provide a vibrant opportunity for growth in community even now over the summer. I've included a directory and short description of many of these blogs.

And if this is the sort of thing you're interested in, I encourage you to join in on the fun. Don't let any feeling that you don't have value to contribute stop you - as with our fellowship at large, I'm certain that is not the case.

"To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." 1 Corinthians 12:7

Yours,
Nick

[Note: Here's another e-mail that I could have made into a post but was just easier to leave as-is.]

Christians and Abstinence - How?

James wore footwear generally considered appropriate for a bridegroom.
From what I can tell, he and Kate's honeymoon hasn't stopped yet.

Maddy Kronovet's post today brought up a couple of practical criticisms of abstinence in Christianity that I thought worth addressing.

She begins by saying that those who choose to abstain are, "fighting a losing battle. Biology is hard to beat. We are programmed to want sex.*"

In large part, she's right. I say from experience, it is hard. Very hard. There is good reason that many Christians marry "young."

But this is a battle which need not be losing. In fact, the entire Christian message can be summed up in saying that life is a battle which need not be losing. The victory is for the having, thanks to Jesus's free gift.

Even with free victory, we fail often, especially when measured up to standards that say even a lustful look is adultery. We are hypocrites.

But that's not the point. For the same reason that we ought not condemn others for having sex outside of marriage, we ought not condemn ourselves: Jesus is the only Judge, and as his sacrifice has declared us righteous, we dare not make ourselves a higher authority.

We Christians are often criticized for failing to practice what we preach. The problem is that it is impossible to practice what we preach. Unconditional love, moral perfection - these things are far beyond human capability.

A great misunderstanding of Christianity is that the point is to live a moral life. The real point is that the life God requires is impossible to live, and so Jesus did it for us. We do seek to live morally, not out of obligation, but out of gratitude and because (as I attempted to illustrate with my last post), it is simply better for us. Just as God designed our bodies to function better when drinking water than when drinking gasoline, our souls thrive under a lifestyle of moral nutrition - love and obedience.

To recap: chastity is hard but it's worth it. We mess up, but it's okay because not messing up isn't the point.

I also wanted to address the statistic Maddy brought up, the latest in a long line showing that abstinence pledges don't seem to be all that effective.

I'm not surprised. Christian youth are often told that they shouldn't have sex, but the good reasons why they should wait are seldom explained.

Even if they were, kids are almost as dumb as adults, in general view the present as much more important than the future, and are subject to powerful and new hormonal urges.

So it's no surprise that an emotional commitment made in a peer pressure situation one evening doesn't hold fast when the moon hits their eyes like a big pizza pie. I see little value in these pledges. I do esteem much more highly parental dialogue and example, but even then kids make their own choices. Sin and biology are hard to beat.

Again though, it's not the point. Those who haven't had sex out of marriage aren't better Christians than those who have - we're all equally terrible Christians. The beauty is that once mistakes have been made, Jesus instantly invites us to live as if they hadn't, guilt-free.

*I agree with Maddy that we are programmed to want sex, but we may disagree on who the programmer is. "It is not good that man should be alone" (Genesis 2:18).

Christians and Abstinence - Why?

What you don't see is that Matthew is wearing Chuck Taylors.
So unoriginal.

In Maddy Kronovet's post in The Spin today, entitled "Do I feel like a virgin or a whore tonight?", Ms. Kronovet criticizes students who choose to abstain from sex before marriage, with an emphasis on those who do so for religious reasons.

As is often the case when someone writes about a culture with which he or she is not well acquainted, the post reveals a two-dimensional understanding of why Christians choose abstinence and what it's like for them.

Being a Christian and acquainted with what might loosely (and somewhat incorrectly) be called evangelical culture here at Penn, I thought I would try and explain the basics.

The big myth is that Christians believe that sex is bad and you shouldn't do it. In this myth's narrative, Christians who abstain are blindly following teachings from the Bible which are archaic and counterintuitive.

On the contrary, Christians have a higher view of sex than popular perspectives today do. Christians believe that our bodies are inseparable from our selves, and that the physical union of a man and a woman in sex signifies and accomplishes the complete union of those two people.

This complete union is also known as marriage, after which, as Jesus says, "they are no longer two, but one flesh" (Mark 10:8). Note that I said sex both signifies and accomplishes this union: more than just symbolic, sex actually encompasses the spiritual and physical reality of two people becoming one.

From here, it's not difficult to see from where a belief in abstinence before marriage comes. In fact, in this view pre-marital sex is impossible. All sex is marital.

Jesus goes on to say in that passage, "Therefore what God has joined together, let no man separate" (Mark 10:9). That doesn't mean that people can't separate, as many demonstrate with their lifestyles. But in the Biblical view, all of this sexual activity is nothing less than adultery.

Do we Christians look down on the sexually active majority around us? We shouldn't. To the extent that we do, we are sinning just as much as those we would think ourselves better than. The same Jesus that said the above words also said, "Judge not, that you be not judged" (Matthew 7:1). Judging is Jesus's job, and when we do it we are pretending to be him. Unlike him, we're not perfect, and so we are made hypocrites.

That's not to say we are indifferent. Christians wish others would be abstinent as well, not simply because we want to enforce an arbitrary moral code, but because we believe that the Bible's view of sex is so much better (in all senses of the word) than Cosmopolitan's, and we would love for everyone to share.

"Why knock something you haven't tried?" asks Kronovet. I would repeat the same challenge to her. It is countercultural to put off pleasure now for pleasure later, but when the future pleasure promises to be much greater* than the presently available one, abstinence is a proposition which makes good economic sense.

And economic sense is something upon which most students at Penn can agree.

* What do I mean by greater pleasure? By Cosmopolitan's standards, this statement is ridiculous. Cosmo and Western culture at large teach that the utility of sex is in its ability to bring mind-blowing orgasms, and the quality of one's sex life can be measured by the integral of all sexual pleasure over time. In this view, any period of abstinence is a period of no sexual pleasure and thus a decreased quality of sex life over a lifetime. So why wait?

By greater pleasure, I mean that sex in marriage is about more than physical gratification. Christians thank God for mind-blowing orgasms, but they have a lot more to thank him for, too: Having someone to be completely vulnerable - naked - with, requiring trust which is only possible in light of a lifetime commitment. The joyful hope that their union may create new life, and that the same union will provide the environment for that life to thrive. Having a companion with whom to split life's sorrows and amplify life's joys. I could go on.

Much more than antiquated and arbitrary, the Christian view of sex is beautiful enough to marvel at, too complex to be easily dismissed, and ultimately worth waiting for.

**As you can see in the photo above, my good friends Matthew and leighcia recently married. For some of leighcia's thoughts the week leading up to the wedding, see here and here. Matthew's, here and here.

One More Thing

It didn't occur to me until later this evening that this great Easter was an answer to prayer. I've been realizing that while I understand intellectually all of the principles of salvation outlined in the Bible, I haven't really been understanding them on a personal, meaningful, heart level.

So I've prayed that God would help me understand the true meaning of my salvation. And that, in short, was what happened today. During the pastoral prayer, the pastor thanked God for saving us, emphasizing that he didn't have to.

And it hit me - he didn't have to! He could have very rightly just abandoned us, and he would have been perfectly happy still. But he decided to provide atonement for us, which involved moving heaven and earth and sending Jesus to live as one of us and absorb unimaginable wrath. Wow, what a thought.

We call that concept grace - completely unmerited, unforced favor.

Anyway, as I illustrated it's something you can have a knowledge of without any real comprehension. But, as I illustrated, it's a prayer that God is glad to answer.

Man, what a thought. I urge you to consider Jesus's words:

And in that day you will ask Me nothing. Most assuredly, I say to you, whatever you ask the Father in my name he will give you.

Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
John 16:23-24

Glory, hallelujah!