In my ongoing efforts at self-disclosure I should metablog a little bit. I intend to discuss theology and christianity quite a bit on my blog. These topics are long term interests for me; representing both personal and academic interests. I will, however, tend to mix the two quite a bit: I might discuss my reading of Ellul or Dallas Willard (one of my more recent interests) in the context of my church experience or my own experiences of faith.
It is inevitable, then, that my discontents will find targets in the communities in which I have personal experience. I'm not likely to discuss the Anglican Church's decision to allow gay clergy to *marry* as long as they stay celibate. Not my community, not my relationships, not really my problem. On the other hand I will probably have a lot to say, over time, about Brethren tendencies towards legalism or Evangelicaldom's general shallowness. This is not meant to imply that I think Evangelicals are "worse" than the Church or England or something. I'm just sticking to the old writers dictum of writing what you know. Prov 27:6, right?
That said I want to rant a little about Evangelicaldom. I'm currently going through a lecture series based on Dallas Willard's book "Renovation of the Heart". The kit I bought contained DVD's with lectures by Willard and impromptu discussions between Willard and a couple of other Christian authors, participant's guides, and a Leader's guide. While I have enormously enjoyed the video presentations, after only the 4th session I have had to abandon completely the Leader's guide and participant guides. The problem is that they are consistently too shallow. The leader's guide presents a complete script for each meeting: Opening prayer and introductory thought, Video Lecture, questions about the lecture, Video Conversation, questions about the conversation, and (optionally) a brief Bible study. The questions about the video segments have been of very mixed quality: sometimes falling to the level of "fill-in-the-missing-word" style questions (which I personally find demeaning when asked in a group) and frequently content to stay at a purely emotive level (How does it make you feel when you think of God as a Father?)
The last straw, however, is the quality of the (optional) Bible Studies. To exaggerate only a little, the ideal Bible Study appears to be composed of a cute anecdote, the meditative reading of a brief text, and a question or two about the emotional state of the participants. What makes it all the more irritating to me is that Willard frequently has an unorthodox perspective on key Christian terms (Grace, Spirit, Soul) that makes for interesting Biblical survey at least. It isn't as though the subject material is completely barren of any exegetical topics.
This isn't really intended as an indictment of Lifesprings. They are actually presenting material of more than usual depth by producing this series. We're quite a distance from Mantra of Jabez or even 40 Days of Marketing style studies. It seems to me to be more representative a general trend than of individual shortcomings. While not a new observation, I continue to be disappointed with the overall shallowness of Evangelical Christians: the products of their Mega-Churches, Worship Industry, and Publishing Industry consistently strike me as catering to, rather than challenging middle American Culture.
Update: I fixed the link which was pointing to the Student edition of Renovation of the Heart to point to the hardcover edition instead. Thanks Justin!
Kudos to the Bee for its editorial stance on the 8th grade constitution test! (BTW, I'm still waiting: Open your archives!) I've followed this controversy with some measure of amusement. Starting this year, 8th graders must pass a 40 question test on the Constitution in order to "Graduate" from 8th grade. In point of fact this is a meaningless distinction: "graduating" just means getting a certificate and walking in a ceremony, even if you don't graduate you still go on to 9th grade.
That fact makes it all the more silly that a lawsuit was filed demanding that students who failed the test still be allowed to walk. Are there no academic standards anymore? Graduation has a variety of other requirements (a "C" average, good Citizenship standing, etc etc). Additionally, students who have serious disabilities are already exempt from taking the test. Whose left? Students whose disabilties don't prevent them from maintaining a C average but that won't let them answer correctly 24 out of 40 questions with a retry if you fail the first time! Congratulations to the school board for maintaining even some small degree of academic rigor, and congratulations to the Bee for supporting them in their decision. Is it too much to hope for that the Bee might consider the positions Odessa Johnson takes when deciding whom to endorse?
Also of interest (mostly of the hilarious kind) was the statement by a Roosevelt Jr. High parent.
Modesto immigration attorney and Roosevelt Junior High parent Solange Goncalves Altman said these eighth-graders face more rigorous standards than residents seeking citizenship.
"I find it ironic," she said.
So do I! But I can think of an easy way to remedy this situation. Can you?
So I realise I'm coming extremely late to this party... but I wanted to comment on Norman Mailer's extraordinary post over at the Huffington Post. Mailer claims to have discovered the utility of the blog; it gives him a forum to tell others when his Spidey-Sense is tingling. Esentially he wonders if the recent (and not-so-recent) failures of MSM are due to counter-intelligence operations by the US government.
No really. He thinks (or suspects) that the CIA fed Newsweek the line about Koran flushing, used its assets in Afghanistan to encourage rioting, and is now gloating over the downfall of Isikoff. Most interesting to me is Mailer's "evidence" for his theory.
Obviously, I can offer no proof of any of the above. There still resides, however, under my aging novelist's pate a volunteer intelligence agent, sadly manque. He does suggest that the outcome was too neat. It came out too effectively for one side, one special side. At the age of eighty-two I do not wish to revive old paranoia, but Lenin did leave us one valuable notion, one, at any rate. It was "Whom?" When you cannot understand a curious matter, ask yourself, "Whom? Whom does this benefit?" Dare I suggest that our Right has just gained a good deal by way of this matter?
What is most striking to me about this line of thinking is not the paranoia, not the invocation of Lenin, not even amusing divulgence of unfullfilled Secret Agent fantasies. No, what strikes me the most is the assumed insular world view. For Norman Mailer, there are two sides. There is the Left (of which the Press is a member, it goes without saying) and there is the Right. Might the riots and alleged deaths have hurt the United States' interests abroad and done damage to us as a country? Mailer does not say; for him the left was hurt and therefore, obviously, the Right must be up to its old Dirty Tricks again.
All this is of course old news by now. It is barely even comment worthy to note that all most (thank you Christopher Hitchens) public intellectuals seem to communicating by telegraph with this century from late 1972. But Mailer has a history of, shall we say, interesting intellectual choices. I recently read a fascinating account by Dorothy Rabinowitz about Mailer's involvement with a murderer named Jack Henry Abbot. Apparently, in 1981, Mailer struck up a friendship with an imprisoned murderer as part of the research he was doing for his book The Executioner's Song. Inspired by the quality of Abbot's writing and thinking, Mailer wrote in the New York Review of Books that Abbott was "a potential leader, a man obsessed with a vision of more elevated human relations."
Abbot became a celebrity cause and was shortly paroled, given a book deal and media coverage (People Magazine and the Good Morning America). A month after his release, Rabinowitz relates, he stabbed to death the manager of a restaurant who tried to keep him from using the Staff-only bathroom. Abbot went back to prison and later comitted suicide.
What attracted Mailer (and others) to Abbott? I suspect that at work is some variant of Radical Chic, hilariously described by Tom Wolfe. As Rabinowitz describes him, Abbott was a amateur revolutionist especially fond of the writings of Mao and Stalin. Suddenly Abbot's "vision of more elevated human relations" comes into focus, doesn't it. Death camps, gulags, and "re-education", all in the service of the brotherhood of man, of course. So what does this little incident tell us about Mailer? I suspect that it is too much to expect that Mailer will side with freedom and democracy over islamofascism in the current conflict of ideas; it may be too much to expect that he even understand it. After all, he's apparently still busy fighting the last great war of ideas, for the other side.
It occurs to me that I ought to offer full disclosure on my relationship to the Modesto Bee if I continue to criticize it. The Bee offered (and continues to offer I believe) community editor and a community columnist positions. I was a community editor for the Bee a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed the experience. For 3 months I attended one editorial board meeting a week, met the publisher and talked shop with the other members of the board (both community and professional).
Additionally as an editor I was extended the opportunity to write a column that appeared in the Opinion section of the paper. I wrote IIRC three columns and even did a little first hand investigative reporting on a local controversy. All this is merely to provide you with my history. I have not yet entirely made up my mind about tying my online persona to the rest of my life, so I'm not going to provide any more details. To sum up, however, I briefly volunteered at the Bee, enjoyed my experience immensely and bear no ill will towards the people I came into contact with and the institution as a whole.
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