The UmBlog

book report: Unbroken by Hillenbrand (2010)

2012-01-30T09:00:00.005-05:00

I read Unbroken in two days. I will summarize the story, mention the author's effect on the story, and then discuss the effect on me the reader.

If I didn't have family responsibilities I would have finished it on Saturday, but this book was hard to put down. I really did not know what to expect. I knew it was a book about American soldiers in the Pacific Theater of World War 2 but that's all. I didn't realize it was primarily a biography of Louis Zamperini who went from a sickly child to being a troublemaker, to being a record setting miler who competed in the Berlin Olympics where he stole a Nazi flag, to being a bombadier on B-24's, to a cast away living on a raft with 3 guys for 45 days until he was captured by the Japanese and tortured and degraded by them for the next year to the point of death until the Japanese surrendered. But his life continued on an amazing journey after the war. He suffered from PTSD and became a horrible alcoholic who endangered his wife and baby until she moved out and filed for divorce. But before the divorce proceedings started she went to a Billy Graham revival in Los Angeles and got saved by Jesus. She convinced her husband, after telling him she was not going to divorce him anymore, to come with her to hear Graham. He did and left irritated. But somehow she got him to go one more time. He got up to leave during Graham's invitation to receive Jesus as savior and turned around and went to front to repent. He had promised God as he lay dying on a raft in the Pacific Ocean that if he lived he would serve God. He was completely changed that night. He dumped all his booze down the drain. His nightmares stopped. He was able to live again. He became an evangelist with Graham's organization for a while and was able to visit some of his prison guards, now prisoners themselves for their war crimes, and tell them the good news of Jesus and even personally forgive some of them.

The story is compelling enough but the details and the authority which Hillenbrand writes with magnify the power. Hillenbrand suffers from Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and spent seven years on this book, mostly from the confines of her house. She knows suffering and weakness and oppression beyond her control. I think she can speak with empathy about Louis's experiences with privation. In the linked interview above, she says she still calls on Louis for support in the struggles of her illness.

The facts she uncovered on the war were usually disturbing and gruesome.
"In 1943 in the Pacific Ocean Areas theater in which Phil’s crew served, for every plane lost in combat, some six planes were lost in accidents. Over time, combat took a greater toll, but combat losses never overtook noncombat losses." p.80

I vacillate on my agreement with Truman's atomic bombing of Japan. But when I learned about Japan's orders and practices of execution for all POW's about to be liberated, I lean to supporting the use of the bombs.

That August, the Japanese War Ministry would issue a clarification of this order, sending it to all POW camp commanders: At such time as the situation becomes urgent and it be extremely important, the POWs will be concentrated and confined in their present location and under heavy guard the preparation for the final disposition will be made … Whether they are destroyed individually or in groups, or however it is done, with mass bombing, poisonous smoke, poisons, drowning, decapitation, or what, dispose of them as the situation dictates … In any case it is the aim not to allow the escape of a single one, to annihilate them all, and not to leave any traces. p, 198

The bombings killed up to a quarter million people directly. I don't know if there is a moral calculus to see if the costs in lives balance, but, like I said, I'm now tipped somewhat in favor of Truman's decision. These two bombs alone don't equal the death brought by the Japanese on Nanking. Look at this example of their actions before the US got to the main island,

That same month, American forces turned on Saipan’s neighboring isle, Tinian, where the Japanese held five thousand Koreans, conscripted as laborers. Apparently afraid that the Koreans would join the enemy if the Americans invaded, the Japanese employed the kill-all policy. They murdered all five thousand Koreans. p. 223

The massacre would truly have been bloodthirsty. When Japan was successful, their treatment of slave labor was just as brutal. In its rampage over the east, Japan had brought atrocity and death on a scale that staggers the imagination. In the midst of it were the prisoners of war.

Japan held some 132,000 POWs from America, Britain, Canada, New Zealand, Holland, and Australia. Of those, nearly 36,000 died, more than one in every four.* Americans fared particularly badly; of the 34,648 Americans held by Japan, 12,935—more than 37 percent—died.* By comparison, only 1 percent of Americans held by the Nazis and Italians died. Japan murdered thousands of POWs on death marches, and worked thousands of others to death in slavery, including some 16,000 POWs who died alongside as many as 100,000 Asian laborers forced to build the Burma-Siam Railway. p. 313

If the American invasion triggered the slaughter of POWs, then 132,000 would have died right away before the losses to the invading army. Just as radiation from the bombs caused long term illness and destruction to Japan, so did the inhuman treatment of POWs by the Japanese also create long term damage.

As bad as were the physical consequences of captivity, the emotional injuries were much more insidious, widespread, and enduring. In the first six postwar years, one of the most common diagnoses given to hospitalized former Pacific POWs was psychoneurosis. Nearly forty years after the war, more than 85 percent of former Pacific POWs in one study suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), characterized in part by flashbacks, anxiety, and nightmares. And in a 1987 study, eight in ten former Pacific POWs had “psychiatric impairment,” six in ten had anxiety disorders, more than one in four had PTSD, and nearly one in five was depressed. For some, there was only one way out: a 1970 study reported that former Pacific POWs committed suicide 30 percent more often than controls. p.346

It wasn't the effects of starvation that caused nightmares and self-destructive behaviors, but the effects of the dehumanization of POWs. For Louis Zamperini though, his secret was forgiveness,

In Sugamo Prison, as he was told of Watanabe’s fate, all Louie saw was a lost person, a life now beyond redemption. He felt something that he had never felt for his captor before. With a shiver of amazement, he realized that it was compassion. At that moment, something shifted sweetly inside him. It was forgiveness, beautiful and effortless and complete. For Louie Zamperini, the war was over. p. 379

Jesus speaks about this secret himself, as many others have. So I entered into the hatred of the POW's toward the Japanese guards but, with Louis was able to journey out of it into forgiveness for them and empathy for our soldiers.

another cheaper house idea

2012-01-29T20:14:00.003-05:00

Here is my latest crazy idea. Well, it's an enhanced earlier idea.

I think thick walls are helpful no matter what. I think two different layers are important as well for airsealing as well as insulation and thermal mass. I'm also into quick and cheaper.

So here's my latest big idea, Hesco wall (R-house) filled with dirt with strawbales on the outside tied into the welded wire of the Hesco walls. The bales would not be load bearing, just insulating. They would be covered with plaster to protect them from the elements. If critters somehow got into them, the occupant, such as myself, wouldn't hear a thing through the 18" of fill in the Hesco wall. I'm also thinking of putting the window frames between the layers.

Unlike the EarthCo Megablock idea I wrote about last fall, the R-house does not require any particular mix of soil to stick together, in fact it can be filled wit

Image via Wikipedia

h sand, just like armies have been doing successfully in Iraq and Afghanistan for a decade now. The Hesco wall is simply wire mesh, a giant gabion, that holds a bag which holds the fill. Wires and pipes can be run inside the mesh before being filled. A bucket loader can fill up the gabions in a couple hours. The bales can be stacked in a day. The first coat of plaster can be sprayed on in a day or two, inside and out.

But, I just can't figure out a roof. Maybe a pole barn or Amish barn design. I'm not thinking two story but more a ranch with a loft. I do like the rounded walls in the picture above. And how to insulate it? I do like vault roofs as well. Owen Geiger recently posted pictures of two vaults involving earthbags at the earth bag building blog (which happens to be my favorite blog on the entire internet).

Are these two layers overkill? Not at the price for them. Maybe 3 foot think walls are not good for small building lots, but if I had the room, I'd go for it. If I had the room, I'd dig the dirt from the yard and make a pond. Three foot walls though. If one lives in a climate with extreme temperatures yet wants comfort without high technology, and the costs they entail, and if one wants to build without the concern of off-gassing from hi-tech products, and if one does not want the vulnerability to fire from timber posts, knowing that plastered bales won't burn, if one for some reason worries that meteors might strike their neighborhood regularly and in need of walls that resist bazooka missiles, how much better does this get?

I guess, if you are in hot places like deserts, one could just buy the Hesco bunker which comes with an aluminum roof, since you wouldn't need straw bale insulation.

book report: Keep Your Head Up, A. Bradley, ed. (2011)

2012-01-22T15:18:00.004-05:00

When Crossway was offering books to bloggers for review, I was eager and tentative at the same time to take on this book, Keep Your Head Up: America's New Black Christian Leaders, Social Consciousness, and the Cosby Conversation, edited by Anthony B. Bradley, (2011). Would a middle class white reader such as myself have anything to gain from this conversation? It turns out, I do, partly because we are all believers in Christ, the writers and me, the reader. I highly recommend this to any believer, of any skin color, but I also can recommend this to those who don't share the faith of the contributors, because the church is essential to the discussion of African-American culture.

Each author uses the controversial book by Cosby and Poussaint Come on People: On the Path from Victims to Victors (2007) as their foil. Regardless of the validity of Cosby and Poussaint's statistics, which were questioned by another black intellectual, Michael Eric Dyson, the authors see these issues in need of spiritual answers, found only in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Dyson's input is acknowledged in the opening and closing chapters, but whether drop out rates are higher or equal to whites, they are still too high. So what are the solutions? There are ten essays with overlapping and non-exclusive proposals. I want to highlight some of them, based on the amount of my underlining.

The first chapter, by Vincent Bacote, PhD, finds a path in discovering the true history of African-Americans, also known as the archeaological approach. For African-Americans this is seen in efforts such as Black History Month (something I've blogged through a few times). But Bacote doesn't want the story to start in the 1600's, when Africans were being brought to North America. He wants the church to inform their congregations of their ancient history, recorded in Genesis, flowing through the gospels and culminating in John's Revelation. This is an important job for the church, as no other institution in our culture will do this. He then references a song from one of my favorite bands, "Our hope in the future directs our gaze to a day when we are free from our personal, relational, and societal dysfunction. An eschatological vision tells us where we are going. In the words of the band King's X, "we are finding who we are," and echo of 1 John 3:2..." (p. 37). In other words, Bacote wants the church to refocus on spiritual formation, catechesis.

In the second chapter, Bruce Fields, PhD, seeks a restoration of the value of the Biblical vision of family, a husband and a wife and their children. But so much needs to be overcome. "The foundations for the perpetuation of the family and the enhancement of its effectiveness in the African-American community must incorporate some historical reflections, beginning iwth an analysis of the devastating effects that slavery had on the black family in America... Families could be easily broken up, with family members being sold simply at the master's whim or because of economic necessities." (p. 43) He then proceeds to show the case for the Bibllical family model from Genesis, Deuteronomy, Proverbs, and Matthew. He declares, "Marriage is something with which God is intimately involved. Thus from a biblical narrative perspective marriage is far more than a mere sociocultural institution." (p. 53) Regarding to those who want to accomodate the reality of the culture and modify the ideal he warns, "our recent history has demonstrated that such a view has been devastating to the community." (p. 59) The experiments consistently fail, there is nothing new for family structures, only the debris of the self-destructive experiments.

In the third chaper, Pastor Howard Brown speaks to sexuality in the black community. He punctures the simplistic thought that marriage solves everything, "I do not believe marriage, in and of itself, is the answer to our sexual brokenness. Marriage itself can be only as healthy as the people it unites." (p. 66) But the adults are responsible in ending the mysoginistic cycle, "boys observe crass, even pornographic descriptions of male exploits. The mere description of such things with adolescent, teenage, or younger boys is a form of sexual abuse, causing much of the same damage as physical abuse. The images, deposited by men they trust, rip their way into the tender psyche of our boys, leaving deep scars that surface in their later sexuality." (p. 75) How is this cycle broken? "The church, the people God has called to Himself, remains the place where we practice the message of God's transforming grace in healing our sexual sin...In this place we call men to see and be seen by their Creator in ways powerfully intimate enough to call them out of a fallen image of sexuality into God-ordained manhood." (p. 78) He provides more details on how this can happen.

The fourth chapter written by Ralph Watkins, PhD, advises us to listen the secular prophets of Gangsta Rap. He focuses on Ice Cube and neglects Tupac (perhaps because Ice Cube is alive and still performing). He asks, "Can the church see what has caused and continues to cause the conditions under which poor inner-city African-Americans are laboring? If the church listened to hip-hop as a weeping prophet, how would that change its take on gangsta rap?" (p. 93) Specifically in regards to the youth he asks, "Do they feel heard in hip-hop? Do they feel loved by hip-hop? Has hip-hop become their pastor?" (p. 94) He provides a list of songs to find to begin to hear the prophetic voices crying out against the injustice that black culture suffers.

Pastor Lance Lewis, in chapter six, speaks of the community of the church. "Against the backdrop pf incredible dehumanization, the black church stood as the one foundational rock of black humanity. As my brother Carl Ellis Jr. says, 'You may have worked as a janitor and been called john and "boy" all week long, but in the church you were Deacon Jones.' Black people and the black community came to rely on the church as the main agent and actor in our ongoing quest to be simply regarded as people created in God's image and thus owed a measure of dignity, respect, kindness and justice." (p.120) But the American evangelical church has failed by tribalizing God and the solution is to cultivate a desire for a satisfaction greater than the American dream, and a devotion to a mission greater than lifting the the underclass into the middle class, and a determination to seek a place more secure and beautiful than a gated community.

In chaper eight, Pastor Anthony Carter calls the church to orthodoxy in word and deed. "The world is filled with institutions ready and able to feed the hungry...Yet there is only one place people can go to hear the message of redemption from sin and eternal life in Jesus Christ...When the church forfeits the uniqueness of the gospel and turns it into a social construction for social empowerment and political change, it ceases to be the eternal change agent for which Christ gave his life." (p. 160) If Pastor Carter preaches as well as he writes, it must be hard to leave his church every Sunday. "There are infinite ways to lose your soul. There is only one was to save it." (p. 161) He compares the church which focuses on the temporal to the minimization of the eternal to Esau, selling its "birthright for that which is fleeting and momentary." (p.165) He warns the church from allying themselves to any political party, hindering their freedom to speak prophetically and confidently from the word of God. "A society morally adrift...does not need a church unsure of what it believes." (p. 174)

In the last chapter Craig Mitchell, PhD, analyzes Michael Eric Dyson's criticism of Cosby and Poussaint, acknoeledging the many things Dyson gets right while also demolishing the dead ends of black liberation theology and it's partner communism.

The problems in the poorer African-American community are deep rooted, and the issues Cosby and Poussaint are the symptoms. The causes are systemic and in the hearts. The church can do the soul surgery, by pointing to Jesus and his words, and acting from that perspective. The book concludes with the contrast as presented by Tupac's "Keep Ya Head Up" and the motto of the African Methodist Episcopal Church: God our Father, Christ our Redeemer, The Holy Spirit our Comforter, Humankind our Family. There is hope, and it begins and ends in Jesus. This book points over and over to Jesus and is a powerful read, it only took me two days to finish it. Hopefully, the quotes prove that any Christian can be edified by this book and not just black believers.

Building arched roof without concrete or steel

2012-01-19T10:11:00.005-05:00

First of all, credit goes to Owen Geiger for finding this and putting it on his blog.

Timbrel vaults, aka Catalan vaults, seem like magic to me, method and history here. But they work really well in massive European cathedrals (and have lasted for 100s of years) as well as amazing

Image by Skunkworks Photographic via Flickr

American urban buildings, like the NYC Gustavinos, built by Rafael Guastavino Moreno. Somehow thin tiles are layered into a vault and form gorgeous roofs that don't fall down. Great explanation and documentation here.

From Low-tech magazine,

Cohesive construction also proved to be very durable. During the restoration of Ellis Island in the 1980s, only 17 of almost 29,000 tiles had to be replaced. And of course, several churches are living proof of the achievements of timbrel vaulting in the Middle Ages.

Wow.

Image via WikipediaHere is a link to a well-documented build in Ethiopia where the affordable materials at hand are dirt and rocks. Building the SUDU

It's also being done in South Africa.
Can this be used here? It's been done recently in England for a home.

Here is a short video showing the building of a demo roof and the effort to bring it to failure. Found here, warning, turn down the volume.

book report: Terror by Night by Terry Caffey (2009)

2012-01-18T14:20:00.004-05:00

I picked up Terror by Night by Terry Caffey in the Kindle store when it was available for free. It was set aside until I had an interlude between big books. This autobiography is hard to put down. Terry tells his story with all it's rawness. Although he is a Christian man, he admits to his suicidal tendencies after surviving the murders of his family and attempted murder on him as well. But there is something more amazing about this story. Terry learned forgiveness and tried it. He forgave the killers of his wife and sons. He forgave his daughter who was an accomplice if not the mastermind of the crime. As he sought God in the Bible in the months after the crime he started to ask himself, what would Jesus do in this situation? He concluded that Jesus would not ask for the death penalty. He also knew that Jesus had forgiven him of so many sins. He also knew that Jesus gave him all the room and time he needed to come to faith and repentance. Terry wanted to treat these murderers the same way Christ treated him. So he told the court that this Texan did not want the Texas judicial system to pursue the death penalty. He also continued to visit with his daughter and encourage her and affirm his love for her, even after he learned of her participation in the fratricide and matricide. The entire story is summarized in a video from his website by CBN, but the viewer won't have the benefit of becoming emotionally entangled in Terry's story without reading it. It is a modern version of the the biblical character Job.

Theodicy solved in Cameron's movie Avatar (2009)

2012-01-12T08:39:00.004-05:00

Last night I revisited Avatar, which I did not review favorably, with my teen aged son and sole control of the DVD remote so I could skip the alien intercourse scene. I still agree with all my earlier criticisms of the movie, however, I thought Cameron makes a case for the solution to the problem of evil made by philosophers such as Alvin Platinga.

The deity, Eywa, of the Na'vi planet, Pandora, is presumed to not take sides in the battle over the planet's resources and people and critters by the Na'vi, as explained by a native Na'vi (Neytiri) to the human avatar (Jake Sully) when he's praying at the tree which represents her seeking help in defeating the invading humans. So he rallies all the Na'vi tribes, formulates a last stand battle plan, and leads the Na'vi people into a massacre. But suddenly all the critters join in on the fight and turn the battle against the humans. Obviously, Eywa stepped in, and could have at any time, and really didn't need Sully's help or battle plan. But, by allowing the evil, a greater good could come from it. Things like unity and courage and valor. This is a form of the solution to the problem of evil described as evil providing a foil for good. The deity is still in control, but permits a lesser evil to provoke a greater good.
Image via Wikipedia

more trash to buildings

2012-01-11T14:58:00.002-05:00

Eichelberger Architects - Innovative Materials

Instead of buliding with hay bales, how about building with 6'x6'x3' bales of waste paper and waste plastic? I love this thinking, and I love thick walls covered with plaster. It might be the simplest way toward a nearly passive house. Doug Eichelberger is doing it to make barns, with trash, a baler, chicken wire, a forklift and plaster. I also like his gabion barn.

This video is from the link Trash Barn #3

a proposal to remove the word "marriage" from our legal discussions

2012-01-10T10:43:00.009-05:00

I'm a conservative, born-again Christian.

I do believe the Bible forbids homosexual expression, and I've written many times about that contention, but I don't think those prohibitions can be legislated in a multi-cultural society such as America's.

I do think marriage, in the Bible is only between one man and one woman, in agreement with Jesus, see Mark 10:5-9. I have presented many explanations on this blog why gay marriage is not a Biblical option.

I think marriage, from it's earliest description is a concept from the Bible, see Genesis 2:22-25. I'm not aware of any earlier data, but am welcome to any if found. I believe marriage is fundamentally a religious word that no longer makes sense in our more religiously diverse culture.

I live in the United States of America that believes in a separation of church and state, but that should not mean a dismissal of the population's religious concerns. Those of us who are religiously conservative object to calling a non-heterosexual union a marriage.

I'll say it again, "Marriage" is a religious word. Perhaps it is time to return that word to the religious, and replace the term "marriage" in the law books with "civil union" or "domestic union" or "civil partnership" or some other legal contract term. That way "marriage" can be practiced as understood by each religious body. Those who are irreligious can call their unions whatever they want. Liberal Christians can call gay unions marriage if they want. But everyone can have a civil union from the state. That way, there will be no "separate but equal" issue, a complaint of advocates of and sympathizer to gay marriage.

Parallel legal terms have worked, as argued for here, and it seen to work great for both gay and straight marriages in France, and the French Catholic church (at first against the law now see no issue with it), and U.S. straight couples now seem to be trying out civil unions instead of marriage, but "separate but equal" just does not fly in our society because of its abuse in history. If everyone could be recognized, who wanted it, as legal domestic partners, with all the rights from the federal government, then the Defense of Marriage Act, another hurdle in the hindrance of federal rights where states recognize offer equal rights, could be bypassed.

My proposal does not mean that clergy could no longer partner with the state, but they would no longer sign marriage licenses, but rather domestic partner licenses. I don't think the opening of the floodgates will result in a wash of gay partnerships but rather more straight partnerships, who dread the "M word" but want to preserve privileged rights including divorce, because without marriage, one can't get a divorce and can be left stranded economically.

I value comments from the left and right on this proposal. I find the wisdom of the NYT editorial by Blankenhorn and Ruach very helpful,

In all sharp moral disagreements, maximalism is the constant temptation. People dig in, positions harden and we tend to convince ourselves that our opponents are not only wrong-headed but also malicious and acting in bad faith. In such conflicts, it can seem not only difficult, but also wrong, to compromise on a core belief.

So if this proposal can help the church demonstrate that we love our neighbors by not denying rights they feel entitled to, by denying ourselves the privilege of power in our society, by living according to the norms of a heavenly culture to provide a contrast of hope, then maybe the kingdom of Jesus in America will be more lamb-like with plowshares instead of swords.

Nuance come from conversation, so please comment here and refine this idea.

See similar proposals from two Pepperdine law professors, expanded on by Time mag, and Ms. mag, and supported by at least one atheist.

book report: Over Fields of Fire by Egorova (2010)

2012-01-08T20:23:00.004-05:00

I enjoy autobiographies, and the story of the Russian communist ground attack pilot, Anna Alexandrovna Timofeeva-Egorova, who helped repel the Germans from the USSR is better than any work of fiction I've read recently. Over Fields of Fire reads like an oral history, organized chronologically, but roughly transcribed. The amanuensis, if there was one, preferred ellipsis to periods at the end of paragraphs, as if Egorova stopped abruptly. It was annoying but did not take away form her story of determination, luck, hardship, betrayal by her country then redemption. After reading Davies' book, No Simple Victory, and his criticism of Soviet tactics, I had thought of the Red Army in only one dimension, soulless communists. But Egorova did not need a political officer to force her to fly and defend her motherland. She sought work in Moscow before the war to help build a modern subway as an enthusiastic Komsomol member. When she wasn't working underground or sleeping she was learning all she could about flying. Then the war came and she was able to use her abilities for the defense of her country. She defended her country even though her brother was wrongly sent to GULaG. Interestingly to me, her hometown retained its Orthodox priest who performed a funeral for her after her plane went down and she was presumed dead. Although Stalin tried hard to execute most of the clergy, nevertheless, enough remained in out of the way places to serve such purposes. Because Stalin considered all Soviet POW's traitors, she had to endure more mistreatment from her own people, the SMERSH, after surviving her plane crash, extensive burns, and maltreatment by the Nazis in a POW camp. Yet she persevered and insisted on her rights and history, a decorated and highly successful pilot, to retrieve her communist card and return to good standing. She made no headway until after Stalin passed and Krushchev, his successor, declared that mistakes were made and needed to be made right. Hers were made right.

My one other formatting criticism is the translator's choice to leave too many words untranslated, but footnoted. In a paper version this would not be so bad, but in the Kindle version, it was too much flipping around. I picked this up in the Kindle store when it was temporarily free and it was worth every penny.

Jesus's resurrection and the Law of the Pressurized Conspirator

2012-01-03T07:06:00.007-05:00

I re-read an old book, among many, over the Christmas break,Cover via Amazon God in the Pits by Mark A. Ritchie. I highly recommend it. The section I want to transcribe here is the same argument I made a year ago, to start off 2011 at the UmBlog. No one dies for a their own lie. Nor do ten guys from many strata of society choose death under torture in many different societies maintaining they witnessed that Jesus rose from the dead. Ritchie writes from the commodities trading pit where fellow workers were busted for inside trading, among other things. First he gives credit to Chuck Colson's experience and observations.

Watergate conspirator Charles Colson was the first to notice this principle of the pressurized conspirator. In his book Loving God, colson observed that even with all the power of the presidential office to be preserved, his small band of loyal followers of the president could not contain the Watergate coverup for more than three weeks. As the enemies of the White House increased the pressure, the men of power gave in to the instinct of self-preservation. Indeed, the likelihood of exposure increased as the pressure on the individuals increased. For purposes of comparison, Colson hypothesized that the original founders of the Christian faith were a band of conspirators like those involved in Watergate; that they had, as my atheist professor suggested, disposed of their beloved leader's body in some hidden spot and proceeded to proclaim him miraculously alive. they soon found themselves the objects of the most cruel torture. And the more widely they spread their story, the more misery they had to endure. After his own experience as a conspirator, Colson observed that they could not have endured the pressure and kept their story intact had they been conspirators. pp. 204-5

Then Ritchie observes his own world of work.

The inside traders have everything to gain, while the first century conspirators had not only no positive things to gain but were inflicting on themselves more misery than it is possible for a human being to comprehend. In addition, the exposure of the insiders would not honly have removed their power and money, but would also have brought upon them great shame and possible jail terms. The opposite was the case for the disciples. Their exposure would not only have stopped their suffering, it might have produced significant financial and political reward for the individual who could have effected the exposure. Yet they maintained their story. p. 206

He goes on to recall a conversation with his wife about this topic.

"I don't know," she said. "People have been known to die for causes that were just wrong...Just because someone died for something doesn't make them any more right about their opinion than anyone else. What does it prove? Only that they are sincerely convinced, maybe misled."
"But this is different and that's just the point. The torturous death of the first-century eyewitnesses doesn't prove that theya re smarter than anyone else. but it does prove beyond any doubt that their testimony was sincere. they had to have been absolutely convinced that they had seen him alive." pp. 206-7

As far as I'm concerned, any defense of the Christian faith has to start with the resurrection of Jesus. Everything hinges on Jesus's resurrection. St. Paul himself writes 14 And if Christ is not risen, then our preaching is empty and your faith is also empty...17 And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins! See 1 Corinthians 15.
If he didn't rise from the dead, his claims to divinity fall flat. If he's not divine he can't forgive sins. If did not rise, his words aren't trustworthy. If his words aren't trustworthy, the rest of the Bible is not either. But there were witnesses to the resurrected Jesus. They would not recant. They were convinced by their first hand encounter with the risen Jesus that he is indeed God.

Image via Wikipedia

book report: No Simple Victory by Norman Davies (2006)

2011-12-29T13:45:00.007-05:00

I think Norman Davies has succeeded in his objective in this book, No Simple Victory, with this reader to show in this World War 2 tome that the western theater was a side show to the main theater in the USSR. Regarding Belarus and the western Ukraine he writes,

They saw both the most intense warfare and the worst civilian horrors: the deportations, the Soviet and German occupations, the scourging of the Lebensraum and the Holocaust...They provided the ground over which the war's two biggest campaigns - Barbarossa and Bagration - were fought. It is no accident that Belarus lost a higher proportion of its civilian population than any other country in Europe, and that the Ukraine loast the highest absolute number. The history of these countries deserves to be better publicized. p. 20

Germany invaded the Ukraine years after Stalin committed genocide against that country with his induced famine there (my blog about that here). Germany also invaded after Stalin's great purge, when he had rid the army of most of its officers with arbitrary charges and accusations resulting in execution for most. Yet Russia had vast distances, many bodies, lots of factories and raw materials, and an insane dictator who had no regard for other human beings and made sure no other leader below him did either. The Western fighting only accounted for less than 25% of German army casualties (p. 25). With Bagration and Barbarossa campaigns resulting in two million deaths between them and the fabled Battle of the Bulge causing 38,000 deaths, it's not hard to imagine the logarithmic difference between the fronts.

Davies suggests that the Nazi's undoing in the East was partly due to their racist commitments. Ukraine, especially, had no love lost for the USSR, when the Wermacht overran them, but instead of enlisting their willing aid, they imprisoned and killed them because of their Slavic, instead of Aryan, category, making them sub-human in Hitler'swarped view. On the other hand, he thinks Stalin's insanity helped the USSR. He writes of the USSR,

No society has ever been subjected to such traumatic self-immolation. And one wonders what effect Stalin's mass murders might have had on the Soviet Union's ability to fight the war that was coming. One suspects that a foreign war, against a genuine enemy, came as a great psychological relief. It can be no accident that the Red Army would produce both the greatest number of dersters and the greatest number of men who threw themselves into certain death with cheers on their lips. p.50

He also reminds us that the political army kept the terror levels high in their ranks, even executing soldiers who expressed doubt too loudly. Similarly, all liberated prisoners of war were treated as traitors who were either sent to the gulags (see my earlier book report on them) or executed.

My knowledge of the the invasion of Poland is so limited. I assumed it was easy, but Davies writes, "The result was not the hopeless walkover that is often portrayed. Indeed, the Poles performed rather better than the British and the French were to do when Hitler turned west in the following year." p.77 Poland had a very competent army and the French, their professed ally had an army bigger than Germany's, but the Poles were asked by their allies to not mobilize their forces in order to not provoke Hitler. Yet they rallied and were able to held onto Warsaw for two weeks, then the Soviets invaded from the East and the odds, without help promised within 15 days by England and France, plummeted but they held on for 3 more weeks before admitting defeat. Their escaped units fought equally well in the West with the Allies in Africa, Italy, and France later on.

In the liturgical calendar of Christendom, Herod's slaughter of the innocents (Matthew 2:13-23) is remembered on December 29th. Regarding World War 2 Davies writes, "And no one is more innocent that children. Here lies the deepest 'pity of war". The conflict of 1939-45 destroyed not thousands but millions of children: innocents systematically starved; innocents incinerated by firestorm attack; innocents packed into cattle wagons; innocents gassed in the death camps. The story must be told and retold. For, as time passes, historical reality is harder and harder to believe." p.424 How such horror can happen may not be easily accepted, but our humanity is so broken, capable of great sacrificial love in the image of our maker and such demonic depravity in the same vessel.

I keep reading history of the most tragic proportions over my Christmas break every year. But the Christmas story is also full of tragedy amidst victory, just like the Easter story. Eventually, righteousness prevails, because God, the standard of righteousness, can't be defeated and the battle depends on Him and not on such weak vessels. Thank God.

book report: D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Beevor (2010)

2011-12-17T13:58:00.005-05:00

Anthony Beevor has given us WW2 history geeks another well-researched gift in Cover of D-Day: The Battle for NormandyD-Day: The Battle for Normandy. A few years ago, before I started writing these book reports I had read his tome, Stalingrad: The Fateful Seige, which was a tremendous read. Beevor has no kind words for the British General Bernard Montgomery. He is embarrassed with Monty's lack of initiative and decisiveness. He is frustrated with the fear of the landing craft captains who released their tanks and men too far from the shore in the rough surf resulting in unnecessary losses and deaths. He admires the American generals and respectful of the German generals who tried repeatedly to make Hitler's fantasy battle plans come true, despite their better judgment. The German army was the better army on the ground in Normandy. They had better weaponry, better soldiers, and better tactics but the Allies had more. They had more men, more bullets, more tanks, and more support by the locals. The German army used conscripts from France and Poland and Russia and many other occupied countries who turned on their German impressors when given the opportunity. The locals would deny having any food to give to retreating Germans, but suddenly find plenty when the overrunning Allies came through. This resulted in a reprisal from SS troops in France, who returned to the farmhouse and killed the women who had not helped them.

Beevor does an excellent job of capturing the sights and smells in addition to the strategies and politicking. He is able to zoom in on one grunt's ground fight and then zoom out to the arguments among the politicians. I'm intrigued by Churchill's resistance to this invasion. Churchill preferred a continued upthrust North from Italy instead of an attack from the West into Berlin. Churchill presciently feared the consequences of Communist Russian troops occupying eastern Europe as they drove the Nazis back, but Roosevelt, foolishly, did not distrust Stalin.

This is the first book I've read on my Kindle from my local library, woot. My only complaints are that I was unable to zoom into the maps, I love map reading, and I was unable to find the pictures in the printed book.

enough with the Flat Earth myth

2011-12-07T09:35:00.003-05:00

This comes up so much, especially by people with an axe to grind against conservative Christianity, that I needed a link to permanently come back to, so I will point to the "Christianist" site, Wikipedia, Myth of the Flat Earth - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia . I appreciate the quote from the most belligerent "Christianist" Stephen J. Gould, "there never was a period of 'flat earth darkness' among scholars (regardless of how the public at large may have conceptualized our planet both then and now). Greek knowledge of sphericity never faded, and all major medieval scholars accepted the earth's roundness as an established fact of cosmology."

book report: December 1941 by Shirley (2011)

2011-12-06T08:06:00.007-05:00

Some people turn to fiction for a light literary snack, but my weakness is war history. and this book was just right for my sweet tooth. But this book is distinct from most of the other histories I read. Author Craig Shirley gives his readers the milieu of an historical event, in this book, the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7th. For me anyway, it was fascinating to learn that the newspapers were still printing Hollywood gossip in addition to reporting on the battles raging around the world.

The book is organized simply, by each day of the month of December. Shirley brilliantly weaves the trivial and mundane with the politics and the sacrifices of soldiers and citizens alike. He provides sufficient background to the events on each day. The book ends before the war resolves, yet sets up all the obstacles and fear inducing losses in the Pacific. If one is unfamiliar with the 2nd World War, this book's focus on one month is a great foundation for understanding the Pacific Theater, and leaves one wondering how were the Allies able to turn back the unstoppable Japanese and Germans. It's one victory after another for the Axis in December 1941. Even for someone familiar with the history, like myself, it made me want to revisit the history, so I got two more books out of the library, one on D-Day and one on the battle of the Atlantic against the German U-boats.

Many thanks to Booksneeze for this complimentary review copy.

an addendum: I found the examples of FDR's very socialist policies enlightening to today's debates. Shirley did not criticize these policies, but simply presented them, their background, and the ends they served. Shirley later claims that WW2 created the American middle class, a topic very much in today's discussions.

sex before marriage

2011-11-30T08:14:00.003-05:00

Genesis 2:22 Then the LORD God made a woman from the rib and brought her to Adam. 23 "At last!" Adam exclaimed. "She is part of my own flesh and bone! She will be called 'woman,' because she was taken out of a man." 24 This explains why a man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one. 25 Now, although Adam and his wife were both naked, neither of them felt any shame. (NLT)

There is no proof text verse in the Bible that says "thou shalt not have pre-marital sex" although it does condemn extra-marital sex, AKA adultery, see the 10 commandments series and Exodus 20:14. Some contend that in the ancient near east, whoever you had intercourse with became, by default, your spouse. There are several examples of wedding ceremonies in Genesis that don't make it that simple, for God's people at least. I think it's because God's people knew this Garden of Eden story. The uniting is a gift from God. Now people trash God's gifts all the time and our society tries to restrain it, notice the "no littering" signs. Sex is a big deal. But in the context of a life long relationship, it's a small cog in the entire organism, the new, united flesh. Verse 24 hints at a ceremony, signifying the cleave from one's biological heritage and a cleave into a new heritage. King James says, 24 Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.

{Cleave is such a great word because it is a contonym.}

If two people are cleaving to each other without publicly declaring a cleaving from or the cleaving to (which a public ceremony and an exchange of rings and oaths and a certificate signing and necessity for a legal divorce to undo) then they are trashing God's gift. If they are believers, then they are disrespecting their sibling in Jesus Christ. Some have also called this pre-marital adultery. I'm not sure if I can go there all the way with that last one.

My advice for unmarried couples is to keep the Christian romance public and day-lit until after the wedding reception.

PTSD and the citizen soldier

2011-11-26T09:18:00.005-05:00

I watched Restrepo last night. It was very similar to the Danish documentary, Armadillo, Image via Wikipediawhich I watched last month. In between I read and reviewed here, What is it like to go to war by Karl Marlantes. I also witnessed a highway fatality for the first time in my life and my dear grandmother passed away. So I've been thinking about death lately. Restrepo got me writing on it.

Both films are the products of filmmakers embedded with squads in Afghanistan, caught in frequent firefights with the Taliban. Death visits both sides of the conflict and is documented on camera. One of the soldiers in Restrepo describes exactly the same phenomenom that Marlantes describes of the firefight "high", which Marlantes calls a transcendent state. The young soldier, without the decades of reflection afforded to the Vietnam veteran and author, can only say the firefight experience exceeds any other sensation one might have known. He doesn't quite grasp that his soul is engaged as well as his body and spirit, the world of transcendence. Later on in the film though, a man considered by all as one of their best dies in a Taliban ambush. The camera captures the anguish in the middle of the firefight of one soldier in particular upon discovering the body. The directors interleave between the Afghanistan scenes interviews with the soldiers in civilian clothes, in a studio, in Italy, not too long after their deployment. The soldiers are still talking about that loss, and their ongoing inability to cope. One soldier can no longer sleep, even with multiple medications. They are exhibiting symptoms of PTSD. A later scene in the movie helps explain the continued issues. The platoon leader calls a meeting to discuss another troop's loss of 9 men in the attempted establishment of another remote outpost like theirs. He gives a pep talk on how the troops can't retrench and seek safety, but must continue to engage the Taliban, then offers a moment of silence for those killed in action. But a moment is not enough. The leader has not been trained in dealing with this thoroughly, or better than a moment of silence. Marlantes' book had not even been published yet. In the firefight, in that episode of transcendence, the soul is most exposed and thus able to imbibe so deeply in life and yet so vulnerable and easily scarred. Hence the inability to sleep. When sleep comes, the memory so deeply tattooed on the soul reasserts itself and like a demon homeless during the waking hours, brings back 7 more (see Matthew 12:45) amplifying the torture. The sufferer prefers insomnia to the poltergeist in their mind, or chooses another demon, like alcohol, to stifle the first. It's not so hard for me to understand why some soldiers choose suicide when they can't exorcise the memories of death and weakness and inability to change the past.

My experience was not a soldier's experience in a firefight. But I could have lost my family in a car accident as I drove down the narrow Merritt Parkway in Connecticut. A driver bounced off the jersey barrier to my left and lost control, swerving in front of our minivan, I braked hard, and watched the car collide straight on with a three foot diameter tree that did not give. I pulled over trying to be a good Samaritan to see if the guy was OK. But he wasn't. The police showed up very quickly, but there was nothing to be done for this soul. I think spending the time giving a witness statement to the police was somewhat therapeutic, but so was the next hour in the car with the family, as we prayed and sat silently, listening to music without words, classical and jazz. We could be solemn and reflective. We did not have to listen to a pep talk telling us to buck up and move on. We could linger and respect the life lost. This was not unlike the service for my grandmother. A spiritual event supplemented with humorous anecdotes and proud reflections by her family.

Marlantes says our modern army needs something lost in the modern army, rituals for the dead. A moment of silence is not enough. The Bible refers to our lives as grass. Our lives really are fragile. Even for those of us who have security in an after life with Jesus, can still be haunted, see Nate Self's memoir Two Wars.

Armadillo's subjects experienced casualties, not deaths. It also dealt more with the boredom between engagements. Restrepo's soldiers received near daily engagement. Perhaps the wounds on their souls never got the time to begin healing because the frequent firefights kept exposing them. I pray these soldiers get the healing they need, so they can get on with life without the night terrors and medications, licit or otherwise. I pray their demons finally go away.

bottle brick construction

2011-11-20T19:50:00.002-05:00

First Kelly Hart, at the earth bag building blog, posts a link to the bottle brick house in Africa. Then I found a BBC report on it. Eventually I ended up at Eco-Tec Soluciones Ambientales, which I think is the Latin American nexus of this technology. This video seems to explain how it started way back in 2000. My brain is exploding with excitement especially about applying this to Haiti, which has an abundance of trash water bottles all over Port-au-Prince.

book report: The Grace Effect by Taunton (2011)

2011-11-16T20:34:00.004-05:00

Larry Taunton's book, The Grace Effect: How the Power of One Life Can Reverse the Corruption of Unbelief (2011), sets in contrast his friendly conversations with New Atheist Christopher Hitchens about evil with his experience of evil as he tries to adopt a Ukrainian orphan with HIV. In a post-debate conversation with Hitchens about absolutes he posits

Then it seems to me...that the question is this: which philosophies or religions restrain our darker impulses, and which ones exacerbate them? ... Christianity...begins with the premise that man is evil and that he needs to be saved from himself. Atheism, on the other hand, offers no compelling reason why I should not do precisely as I want to do. pp. 4, 5.

I never thought about it from this angle so I was really intrigued how Taunton would develop this.

He tried to demonstrate it through his experience with the extremely corrupt Ukrainian government as he tried to adopt a young girl living in the awful conditions of an orphanage, which his wife and son had visited on a short term missions trip with their trip. It was on that trip that the vivacious girl made such an impression on them. They considered adopting her, but really did not consider it possible until God motivated people to open their wallets to them. There are official costs to adopt then there are the unofficial bribes necessary to adopt. Taunton uses the former Soviet way of life as an example of the atheist dystopia. He writes,

In the biblical worldview, the state is a temporal institution meant to serve man, an eternal being. In the socialist model, this is reversed: man, a temporal being, serves the eternal state. p.84

Any possible sympathies Taunton might have had to socialism were crushed after his experience in a still-recovering socialist state, Ukraine. He has little positive to say about the Ukrainian government workers or its nihilist culture, although he tries to show some sympathy for them be reviewing their history. He is extremely critical of the Orthodox church before the communists and since the communists. His national adoption advocates, in contrast are presented as wonderful human beings, showing that not every Ukrainian is a miserable, greedy wretch because of their country's communist past. The up and down story of his daughter's adoption is a story that stays with you and calls you back after you close the book for the night. We know they get her, but how?

Taunton wants us to see that communism offers no restraint to our wicked nature. He also wants us to see that those seeking to bring life and hope to orphanages are Christians on sacrificial missions, seeking the good of others and not themselves. He wants us to know that atheism is a selfish philosophy that reinforces this wickedness. But he also wants us to know that God offers grace and redemption, as subtly hinted at, but not loudly proclaimed, by the example of their adoption.

His ministry, Fixed Point Foundation, looks like a great resource for the defense of the Christian faith.

Many thanks to Booksneeze for the free book in exchange for my review.

Thomas Nelson has been recently offering many excellent books interacting with New Atheism, see below.

instead of video campuses for growing churches...

2011-11-16T06:37:00.005-05:00

I am part of a growing church. Expansion on site might not result in much expansion after all. So the leaders are kicking around ideas on how to accommodate the growth. One idea that is in use with some mega churches is a multi-site model in which the sermon from the parent church is video recorded and either broadcast live or shown after a week's delay. It seems to work well for those big churches using it. My own experience is that of a regular attender to the overflow room where I watch a live video feed. Because I'm only a few footsteps away from the live venue, I don't feel disconnected from the main body, especially during the between service coffee and mingling time. But the overflow room is not too full, which is something I like. I also like I can get out of my seat without offending the speaker. So it works for me, but mostly because I enjoy less density and more freedom to move around, not really spiritual reasons.

A friend shared an article at the blog, the Gospel-Driven Church that was critical of the video-venue concept. The last point does nag at me. "Video venues assist the idolization of and over-reliance on preachers." The sub-points really drive it home for me (you'll have to go there to read them). The opposing ideas are made more strongly at this blog, Multi-site churches are from the devil, an intentionally provocative title. Another point made is that video, by definition, cannot be incarnational (in the flesh). I did the typical annoying parishioner thing and forwarded these blogs to my pastor. In response to the last point he noted that Paul asked his letters to be read in the churches, Colossians 4:16, also not incarnational. Again, wisdom is proved right by her children.

I didn't know how to progress from there. But then Bradley Wright, whose books I've reviewed here and here, contrasted the expectations on him as an academic lecturer vs. that of a preacher and wondered why the preacher has to do it the hard way? His blog post is also intentionally provocative, Why pastors should plagiarize in their sermons. One commenter noted his positive experience with a church that taught through Chuck Swindoll's commentary on Nehemiah. That one rolled around in my head for a while and gelled into a proposal for the video campus churches while I biked home yesterday.

Why not have people in the pulpit of each satellite campus preach through the same outlines from the same source? Whether they be the parent church's pastor's notes, or an external commentary writer, someone contemporary like Swindoll or Warren Wiersbe, or someone recently passed, J. Vernon McGee or Tozer, or someone from a "better" time, Spurgeon or Edwards, or someone ancient, a church father like John Chrysostom. Ultimately, the church could go back to reading Paul's letters aloud, but a good teacher wants to explain the difficult parts and show the relevancy to today's culture. In this proposal, I envision the pastors getting together every week to discuss the passage and the commentary which is the basis for their sermon. They strip out what doesn't work, keep what works, and supplement based on their congregation and current events. After a few years of doing this, a satellite preacher would be ready to take the campus to independence and become a true church plant. The preacher has saved time, but learned to preach well, has left time for pastoral care, and might even be keeping the day job until the church plant has grown enough to support a full time worker. Of course, everything is acknowledged, unacknowledged would be plagiarism, there is nothing to be ashamed of, and, if the sermons are based on a book, the source material could be made available to the congregation for deeper reflection.

I don't think this is original. but I'm thinking of how to apply it to new situations in our culture. I wonder if it sticks to the wall or not. It does seem icarnational to me.

update: Thanks to commenter Joe R. who goes to a multi-site church, which he attends, that has live preachers at every site instead of a video, preaching from the same text each week, New Life Church in Arkansas.

Perfectionism vs. Compassion in ministry

2011-11-14T20:22:00.007-05:00

I don't know if my responses to the terrible experiences at Teen Mania described at Recovering Alumni deserve attention at their blog. But as I read Lacey's story I heard over and over again a focus on perfection, which is not realistic for a Christian group. Compassion, on the other hand, is. The prevailing culture based on one or the other can strengthen or devastate a believer, which honors or dishonors God. The following contrasts are in response to Lacey's experiences.

Perfectionism repeatedly tells people to suck it up. Compassion does not have a goal to be equally hard on all the kids.
Perfectionism demands attention from sleep deprived teens and humiliates them when they fall asleep by making them stand in their exhaustion. Compassion makes sure everyone has enough sleep and remains healthy. One beats the sheep, the other protects them.
Perfectionism demands rigid order: a tight line, the same pace, the same silence. Compassion is generous.
Perfectionism insists on one way to point people to Jesus. Compassion knows that we have all come to Jesus in so many ways with imperfect knowledge, including the knowledge of hell. But compassion tends to focus on the good news that Jesus loves us and wants to give us eternal life. Compassion also knows that God hits home runs with crooked bats and that it's really fun to watch God do that instead of insisting on the more perfect bat.
Perfectionism does not tolerate contrary opinions in public. Compassion does not snuff out a smoking wick or break a bruised reed. Compassion is humble and seeks to hear and understand and learn. Compassion is necessary for fellowship.
Perfectionism tries to force the outliers into conformity, compassion leaves the 99 similars to find and hang out with the 1 and seeks to integrate them.
Perfectionism is only interested in healthy people. Compassion seeks to bring healing to broken hearts, broken bodies, broken ankles, broken skin rashes, and violently upset stomachs.
Perfectionism sees laziness where compassion sees exhaustion.
Perfectionism sees one (unachievable) standard, compassion recognizes and commends progress.
Perfectionism uses fear as a motivator. Compassion uses love and encouragement.

Teen Mania has been given gifts, but the lack of compassion/charity/love have made its efforts hollow for some, questionable for many more, and irrelevant to others. The practices of sleep deprivation, criticizing people, accountability cards, peer pressured fasts, abandonment in the Texas countryside, neglect of physical injuries, disinterest in emotions or fatigue do not seem to line up at all with Paul's description of love. Maybe, as long as they have an Honor Academy instead of a Love Academy, its culture may never change. I pray it will though.

update from Warren Wiersbe's commentary on Romans, Be Right, specifically on Romans 7.

"In my pastoral experience, I have counseled many people who have suffered severe emotional and spiritual damage because they have tried to live holy lives on the basis of a high standard. I have seen the consequences of these attempts: either the person becomes a pretender, or he suffers a complete collapse and abandons his desires for godly living. I have seen too that many legalists are extremely hard on other people—critical, unloving, unforgiving. Paul wanted to spare his readers this difficult and dangerous experience. "

Critics of Teen Mania also want to spare interns from that difficult and dangerous experience as well.

1 Corinthians 13

1 If I could speak in any language in heaven or on earth but didn't love others, I would only be making meaningless noise like a loud gong or a clanging cymbal.
2 If I had the gift of prophecy, and if I knew all the mysteries of the future and knew everything about everything, but didn't love others, what good would I be? And if I had the gift of faith so that I could speak to a mountain and make it move, without love I would be no good to anybody.
3 If I gave everything I have to the poor and even sacrificed my body, I could boast about it; but if I didn't love others, I would be of no value whatsoever.
4 Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud
5 or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged.
6 It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out.
7 Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.
8 Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will all disappear.
9 Now we know only a little, and even the gift of prophecy reveals little!

honoring marriage

2011-11-08T09:32:00.003-05:00

I find a certain blogger provides good fodder to get my writing juices going. For some reason, Dr. Tony Jones, an adjunct theology professor at Fuller Seminary, who has demonstrated his dim view on marriage by refusing to legalize his union with his partner, quotes without comment, another culture watcher who asserts that marriage is not holy because quickie divorces desecrate the institution. The quotee may not be a Bible reader, but I expect Dr. Jones is. Here is what I read in Hebrews 13:4 Let marriage be held in honor among all, and let the marriage bed be undefiled, for God will judge the sexually immoral and adulterous. Because some do not honor marriage, does not mean marriage is not honorable, nor sacred, for believers. In the same way, some gnu atheists have had fun desecrating communion hosts, sneaking into the service under the pretense of being a believer, then sneaking out, with the host, in order to post pictures of their attempt at desecration. This desecration did not result in invalidation of the holy ceremony of communion. It exposed a heart hardened to holy things. For the secular person, when someone steps on a United States flag or burns it, that action did not harm the ideals of this nation that the flag represents to its citizens at large. Nor should laws against flag desecration be repealed because some continue to break those laws. It's a childish opinion held by the essayist Dr. Jones honors by quoting.

Because the ideal fails, ten states in the US have enacted laws requiring pre-marital counseling. In the same article at Divorce.com, the authors suggest pre-divorce counseling may be even more effective and should also be legislated. How can marriage be honored? By honoring the bed, a euphemism for sexual purity and fidelity. My previous post discusses these topics in more detail. Sexual fidelity starts before one even starts dating. The pre-spouse devotes their sexual expression to the marriage bed, and abstains until they are in the bed with their spouse. It honors their own bed and all other beds as well. Certainly, those who do that still get divorced, but virgin wedding nuptials are not the only thing that keep a marriage together. Even after marriage, the spouse must still endeavor to keep their purity, by keeping their fidelity, abstaining from the physical affections of others or mental attractions to others (lust and pornography). It's the pre-marital efforts to do the same things that assist in the post-marital state. That sacrifice of self-satisfaction is an ideal expression of holy love that honors marriage. This kind of love runs counter to our culture's norms, so it needs support within a holy community, not criticism by those in the same holy community.

Jesus says marriage is something God does and should not be undone except for severe reasons, see Matthew 19. Marriage should involve preparation, see this great article. As Bradley Wright shows, divorce among Christians who demonstrate their faith by doing Christian things regularly, is nowhere near the level of the culture. More of this can be found in his first book, Christians Are Hate-Filled Hypocrites...

Jesus says that marriage is only for this life, and not the next. Let's honor it while we can.

if sexual ethics are not that big a deal...

2011-10-31T16:26:00.008-04:00

...then why do liberal Christians keep talking about it. Scott Paeth, a professor of religious studies at DePaul University, in a post called "sex for Christians ", written in response to Tim Dalrymple's observations of carnality among Princeton seminarians, has a few things he wants Tim and his conservative ilk to know...

sex is not a big deal
conservative Christian ethics are irrelevant
there are bigger fish to fry (see #1)
sex is a splinter that plank-eyed conservatives are picking at
every Christian is "of this world" in some way or other
it's too hard, good thing God has grace on us

Well, it's weird to discuss Christian ethics with a Christian who doesn't interact with the particulars of the Bible. I was thinking of the general reluctance to hearken to Paul among liberals when I read 2 Timothy a few weeks ago, and Paul tells him, Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God...2 Timothy 1:8. So I won't be ashamed of Paul and will quote him some more, 2 Corinthians 6

16 Or do you not know that he who is joined to a prostitute becomes one body with her? For, as it is written, "The two will become one flesh."
17 But he who is joined to the Lord becomes one spirit with him.
18 Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body.
19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,
20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Sexual ethics do seem to be a big deal to Paul. As a conservative believer, I believe that Paul would only write that because it's a big deal to Jesus. According to verse 18, sexual immorality is a separate category of sin, which defiles the temple of the Holy Spirit. That sounds like "big deal" type of stuff. Of course there is grace and forgiveness, but that comes with repentance. Chastity also can be encouraged by good teaching, which Paul does right before these verses, 12"All things are lawful for me," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful for me," but I will not be enslaved by anything. 13"Food is meant for the stomach and the stomach for food"--and God will destroy both one and the other. The body is not meant for sexual immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. Grace makes all things lawful to us, but wisdom teaches us to back away from things that enslave. Our bodies are the Lord's. Denying the effect of our bodies on our spirits is a teaching contrary to Paul and wallows in old Epicurean heresies. If one must appeal to science, Dr. Bradley Wright's book called Christians are Hate-Filled hypocrites..., among many other studies, shows the positive effects of traditional Christian sexual ethics on families who practice them.

It seems to me that sexual ethics are #1 a big deal and #2 relevant to God's people.

Jesus told his hyper-legalistic religious critics in Matthew 23 that everything needs to be submitted to God,

23 "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cumin, and have neglected the weightier matters of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness. These you ought to have done, without neglecting the others.
24 You blind guides, straining out a gnat and swallowing a camel!
25"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence.
26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean.
27"Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness.
28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.

In my humble opinion, this warning cuts both ways for conservatives and liberals. Each side values one side of the cup and plate more than the other. Conservatives, generally, value personal piety to the neglect of their neighbor and liberals, generally, value their neighbor to the neglect of their personal piety. Jesus' point, reiterated by the epistle writers, is that they go hand in hand. Thus, #3 and #4 the fish are all about the same size.

Worldliness is most directly expounded on by John in his 1st letter,

15 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
16 For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions--is not from the Father but is from the world.
17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.

Paeth uses examples such as owning a car and using the internet as proof that conservatives are worldly, but he's not using John's definition. John exhorts us to disentangle ourselves from lust and pride, proofs of a love for the temporal more than love for eternal God. One might even deduce from John's exhortation, that if one's lusts are not resisted and repented (piety) then perhaps one does not have God's love in him to share with others (neighbors). That's a scary position, and, contrary to #5, means that we are all called to piety, a disentangling from the world.

Regarding #6, which he doesn't number but is really his concluding statement, we can find multiple celebrations in the New Testament, like in Titus 2

11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people,
12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age,
13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ,
14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.
15 Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.

God's power to transform our lives is real. His word is living and active (Hebrews 4:12) and, when engaged with regularly, can convict us and be used by the Holy Spirit to liberate us from our sinful (in this particular discussion, sexually immoral) ways, helping us to love God internally, piously, and externally, with mercy and justice towards our neighbors.

I think Dalrymple is discussing both/and, but Paeth argues as either/or, which is so limiting. Why does he put God in a box like that?

Bonus material from the Cyberbrethren Lutheran blog, "Which is to say, the entire life of the Christian, powered by the forgiveness of God, is an ongoing war against the sin that remains in our flesh. There is no peace treaty with that sin because of forgiveness. The exact opposite."

book report: The end of Sexual Identity by Paris (2011)

2011-10-29T15:36:00.003-04:00

If you are straight and think gay people just need to get over it, this book might be for you.

Dr. Jennell Williams Paris is an anthropology professor at Messiah College in Pennsylvania. She's straight, married, mother of 3, and teaches at a conservative Christian college BUT she's learned some things, like "it's complicated." More than that, she argues, the labels of gay and straight or hetero- and homo- don't convey the complication.

Just because it's complicated does not mean that the author is arguing for gay marriage. Don't jump to conclusions. She doesn't, but do read this short book from IVP to get you thinking.

book reports: two memoirs by Vietnam veterans

2011-10-24T10:22:00.005-04:00

This summer I read Loon: A Marine Story by Jack McLean, when I went on a war history bender. Last week, when I brought my kids to the library, I have a bad habit of sitting on the floor in front of the history section of the "New Arrivals" and checked out What is it like to go to War by the fellow marine Karl Marlantes. I no longer have the books in hand, so I won't have long quotes, but both are terrifying and heart wrenching tales that point to the primary battlefield in a soldier's soul. Nate Self's account of his battle experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan in Two Wars, which I reviewed in the spring, also has many of the same overlapping themes. The biggest theme is the ongoing injury of the soul called post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Both men suffered through it, as did their families. Both Vietnam vets are highly educated, McLean went to Harvard after his tour of duty (the first Vietnam vet). Marlantes left Oxford to go on his tour of duty. They write very well. They wear their hearts on their sleeves.

Marlantes gives himself a more ambitious task of trying to explain humanity's warlike nature. One thing new to me, was his admission that in the middle of the battle, the warrior enters a transcendent state. He describes the sensation of a 20 year old toting a powerful weapon, surrounded by men at their physical peaks also toting powerful weapons with a high degree of competence, working as a team whose collective force is overwhelming, who can then call in air support and artillery support in the midst of a deadly firefight. That sense of power, he says, can make a 20 year old drunk with power. But this exposes an important component of training for the modern American warrior, the spiritual. He looks at other cultures and through history at the rituals used by warriors to acknowledge and assuage the spirit. Marlantes believes that spiritual preparation could greatly reduce the wounds on the hearts of surviving warriors today.

I hope he is listened to and that the military takes his suggestions seriously.

This overdue book report was prodded by this observer's notes from a military Skype station overseas.

a better house than an earthship

2011-10-13T12:52:00.008-04:00

I think about many odd things on my bike ride. Yesterday, I was thinking about North Dakota. It's economy is smoking right now because of it's petroleum reserves. As a result, many people are moving there but are not finding enough housing. However, the climate is tough there. A good house there would be 1) quick to build, 2) easy to keep warm, 3) light filled in those long winters and 4) strong for tornadoes and blizzards and floods, (bonus points for no/low cost mortgage).

Earthbags could do all but 1, unless there was a big team of helpers.

A Corganix shipping container/earthbag hybrid also suffers from slowness except for the utilities which come pre-installed.

Earthships would also be slow. The earthships are low slung though which helps with high winds. They also are built with south facing green houses to capture passive solar heating and provide light.

But this modified version, called the high thermal mass (HTM) home is even faster to build and promises even more ease of heating because of dry stacked concrete blocks for the walls on the north, east and west sides, basically a south facing basement with a roof on it and a greenhouse on the front of it. But I think the concrete blocks will still slow the home builder down. Also, some people, in today's conservation climate, would like to reduce their concrete usage.

I thought maybe the geo-textile cage hybrid from Hesco might be feasible, see the R-house, but it won't have the thermal mass, unless it is filled with sand, and I don't know how to install a running bond beam on top for the roof. So the simplicity of the system would be very fast and might be initially inexpensive, but the modifications necessary might bring the cost back up. Maybe if the R-house panels were filled with stones, like a gabion, with plaster on the inside and foam on the outside. Forming a bond beam on top of a stone foundation wouldn't be that difficult. This house idea is basically living in an above ground foundation.

Another possibility is the EarthCo MegaBlock which provides high mass and a breathing wall, but still in need of outside insulation. These are made from soil on site in a machine that looks like a giant playdoh toy that squeezes out one ton blocks of soil.

A precast two wall concrete panel with 7" of EPS between 2" of concrete on each side would be real fast, but more expensive. I like this last idea though. The polystyrene acts as an insulator and vapor barrier. I wonder if these could be used on the floor as well without a basement beneath. These floor panels can be ordered with radiant tubing installed.

An earth berm on the north side might be weird in a neighborhood, so a low-slung ranch would do the trick as long as wall openings are minimized on the north side. I think the ideal is to be built into a south facing slope, cut into a hill. If one is on a hill, then the flooding issue goes away as well.

Pre-fab makes it fast. Concrete makes it strong. Insulated makes it warm. Insulated on the inside concrete makes it easy to hold a constant temperature. Cut into a south facing hill elevates it off the flood plain and provides plenty of passive solar heating. The only draw back is the pre-fab part gets pricey.

Image via Wikipedia

Update: I forgot about this farmer in Vermont who did this very thing on the cheap, but well constructed see Sugar Mountain Farm and their Tiny Cottage project. They also use earth air tubes to assist in fresh air flow and passive heating.

The UmBlog

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another cheaper house idea

book report: Keep Your Head Up, A. Bradley, ed. (2011)

Building arched roof without concrete or steel

book report: Terror by Night by Terry Caffey (2009)

Theodicy solved in Cameron's movie Avatar (2009)

more trash to buildings

a proposal to remove the word "marriage" from our legal discussions

book report: Over Fields of Fire by Egorova (2010)

Jesus's resurrection and the Law of the Pressurized Conspirator

book report: No Simple Victory by Norman Davies (2006)

book report: D-Day: The Battle for Normandy by Beevor (2010)

enough with the Flat Earth myth

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