Half truths are not true

Kevin DeYoung has read Brian McLaren’s new book, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That Are Transforming the Faith and reviews its argument at some length. DeYoung expresses his intention to be fair, avoiding personal attack, saying "No one deserves to reviled. But some books deserve to pilloried." Here DeYoung describes the "ten questions" referred to in the book title, and here the problems he finds with McLaren's theses. [A pdf of the review is here.] It is pretty clear that McLaren strays pretty far from orthodoxy in his "new kind" of Christianity. The real question is whether it is, in fact, Christianity at all. DeYoung concludes:

The message of McLarenism is pretty simple: God is love and wants everyone to be kind and inclusive and care for the poor and the environment. This is what Jesus was like, and we should be like Jesus. This is, of course, not wrong in so far as it goes. The Liberal/McLaren emphasis on the kingdom is right, their concern for the “other” is right, much of their ethics is right. But McLarenism, like liberalism, cannot be right. It has its emphases all out of proportion, its right statements thrown out of whack by all that is missing. In McLarenism there is no original sin, no wrath, no hell, no creation-fall-redemption, no definite future, no second coming that I can see, no clear statement on the deity of Christ, no mention of vicarious substitution or God’s holiness or divine sovereignty, no ethical demands except as they relate to being kind to others, no God-offendedness, no doctrine of justification, no unchanging apostolic deposit of truth, no absolute submission to the word of God, nary a mention of faith and worship, no doctrine of regeneration, no evangelistic impulse to save the lost, and nothing about God’s passion for his glory. This is surely a lot to leave out.

McLaren’s Christianity is not new and certainly not improved. I don’t believe you can even call it Christianity. It is liberalism dressed up for the 21st century. .... [more]

Just before this summary, DeYoung quotes H. Richard Niebuhr on theological liberalism: “A God without wrath brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministrations of Christ without a cross.”

Christianity and McLarenism (2) – Kevin DeYoung

We have offended

As Lent begins we are reminded that we are sinners, what that sin has cost, and that we are in need of grace:

ALMIGHTY and most merciful Father; We have erred, and strayed from thy ways like lost sheep. We have followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts. We have offended against thy holy laws. We have left undone those things which we ought to have done; And we have done those things which we ought not to have done; And there is no health in us. But thou, O Lord, have mercy upon us, miserable offenders. Spare thou them, O God, who confess their faults. Restore thou them that are penitent; According to thy promises declared unto mankind in Christ Jesus our Lord. And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake; That we may hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, To the glory of thy holy Name. Amen.

Book of Common Prayer, 1662

Purging the "socially unfit"

As I learn more about Progressives and the Progressive Era in American politics and culture I become increasingly doubtful about "progress" and idealists who are confident that they know what must be done in its name. The history textbook presentation of the era and of the major Progressive personalities didn't manage to cover anything about their complicity in racism, ethnic bigotry, and eugenics.

This morning Michael Gerson recommended a book, War Against the Weak: Eugenics and America’s Campaign to Create a Master Race, by Edwin Black. Gerson describes it as:

...one of the most disturbing books about America ever written. It recounts efforts by distinguished scientists, academics, industrialists, health officials and jurists through much of the 20th century to “direct human evolution” by waging war against people with developmental and physical disabilities.

Black points out that early last century, the American Breeders Association — supported by generous grants from Andrew Carnegie — created a committee to study “the best practical means for cutting off the defective germ-plasm of the American population.” The panel included doctors, economists and attorneys from Harvard, Yale, Princeton and the University of Chicago.

Black continues: “During a number of subsequent conferences, they carefully debated the ‘problem of cutting off the supply of defectives,’ and systemically plotted a bold campaign of ‘purging the blood of the American people of the handicapping and deteriorating influences of these anti-social classes.’ Ten groups were eventually identified as ‘socially unfit’ and targeted for ‘elimination.’” Among those groups, according to Black, were the “feebleminded,” epileptics, the “insane,” the “deformed” and the “deaf.”

Eugenic sterilizations did not end in the United States until the 1970s, endorsed by a decision of the Supreme Court. Citizens with Down syndrome and other genetic challenges are increasingly rare in America, because of prenatal testing and abortion. And as such genetic perfection is pursued, those who lack it are subjected to increased prejudice. .... [more]

From the website for the book:

In the first three decades of the 20th Century, American corporate philanthropy combined with prestigious academic fraud to create the pseudoscience eugenics that institutionalized race politics as national policy. The goal: create a superior, white, Nordic race and obliterate the viability of everyone else.

How? By identifying so-called "defective" family trees and subjecting them to legislated segregation and sterilization programs. The victims: poor people, brown-haired white people, African Americans, immigrants, Indians, Eastern European Jews, the infirm and really anyone classified outside the superior genetic lines drawn up by American raceologists. The main culprits were the Carnegie Institution, the Rockefeller Foundation and the Harriman railroad fortune, in league with America's most respected scientists hailing from such prestigious universities as Harvard, Yale and Princeton, operating out of a complex at Cold Spring Harbor on Long Island. The eugenic network worked in tandem with the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the State Department and numerous state governmental bodies and legislatures throughout the country, and even the U.S. Supreme Court. They were all bent on breeding a eugenically superior race, just as agronomists would breed better strains of corn. The plan was to wipe away the reproductive capability of the weak and inferior.

Ultimately, 60,000 Americans were coercively sterilized — legally and extra-legally. Many never discovered the truth until decades later. Those who actively supported eugenics include America's most progressive figures: Woodrow Wilson, Margaret Sanger and Oliver Wendell Holmes.

American eugenic crusades proliferated into a worldwide campaign, and in the 1920s came to the attention of Adolf Hitler. Under the Nazis, American eugenic principles were applied without restraint, careening out of control into the Reich's infamous genocide. During the pre-War years, American eugenicists openly supported Germany's program. The Rockefeller Foundation financed the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute and the work of its central racial scientists. .... [more]

PostPartisan - Defending the word 'retard' is not heroic, War Against the Weak

Worship or show?

A blogger who calls himself "Fearsome Tycoon" suggests that the "easily offended" should skip this observation about a certain type of evangelical worship:

.... There is no way to do “praise band” without turning the service into a “show.” Disagree? Find me one praise band that plays from a loft behind the congregation, where no one can see them except the pastor. A core purpose of a pop-rock performance is draw attention to the performers. I have watched and played in praise bands. I’ve never seen one that didn’t want, no, need to be seen. A guy with a guitar does not have the liturgical significance that an altar, a Bible, a crucifix, a font, or even a simple pulpit does. And I find it ironic that evangelicals tend to label as “idolatry” any and all significance attached to physical objects, yet their service is completely fixated on the power of the personality of the performer. .... [more]

And, responding to this observation, "Praise Idols", by Liam Kinnon:

I had a strong reaction to this post. I have played in, and led, praise bands. I was reminded of an experience I had a year and a half ago. I was leading the worship team for the service we would have every Friday night on campus. We had lost the location we had played in the year previously, and I wanted to take the opportunity of a new space to get the band out of the way. The president of the Christian Fellowship and I decided to move the band to the side, facing the screen and words along with everyone else.

People did not like it.

The reaction was one of the toughest moments I went through with Christians, and is probably one of the reasons I have had little desire to try leading a team since. .... [more]

Thanks to Bob at Wilderness Fandango for the reference.

If You Are Easily Offended, Skip This One : The Boar's Head Tavern, Praise Idols

Good always triumphed in the end

British sources are reporting that Dick Francis, one of my favorite mystery authors, has died. I have, I think, read all of his mysteries, and return especially to the early ones. He has been the source of many pleasurable hours.

The BBC:

Writer Dick Francis, famous for his horse racing-based crime novels, has died aged 89, his family has said.

Francis, who wrote more than 40 best-selling novels during his career, was also a champion jockey in the 1940s and 50s and the Queen Mother's jockey.

He first published his autobiography in 1957, and his first thriller, Dead Cert, followed five years later. .... [more]

In its Francis obituary, the Telegraph describes what made the books so appealing to thriller readers like me:

.... Where other thriller writers probed the darker crannies of the soul, Francis reaffirmed the values of human decency and the struggle between the man of good against the forces of lust for power, dishonesty and greed. Heroes can expect to be chained, beaten, burned or flayed two or three times per book – but good always triumphs in the end.

Francis possessed all the traditional tools of the thriller writer's trade – narrative urgency and a subtlety in intellectual problem-solving – but he combined these with an emotional realism which had eluded writers like Agatha Christie. No one could convey as well as he what it felt like to be drowned, hanged, crushed by a horse or soaked in icy water and left dangling, gagged and bound from a hook in the middle of a Norfolk winter's night. He also had a minute eye for detail and an ability to take even the most un-horsey of readers into his world. He was as convincing in his portrayal of the spartan existence of the stable lad as he was in that of the sybaritic lifestyle of the manipulating owner in his home counties pad: "Not to read Dick Francis because you don't like horses," remarked one reviewer in Newsweek, "is like not reading Dostoyevsky because you don't believe in God." ....

.... After a particularly bad fall at Leicester in 1957, he took the advice of the Queen's trainer, Lord Abergavenny, that he should give up while he was still at the top and retired from professional racing. ....

In 1960, with his wife's encouragement, he turned his hand to a novel. The result, Dead Cert, was published two years later to respectful praise. By the time his second novel, Nerve, came out in 1964 the reviewers were beginning to suggest that he looked good for many more winners.

Francis picked up ideas for his novels in his travels round the world's racecourses. The idea for Slay Ride (1973), for example, came to him when he was in Oslo for the Norwegian Grand National in 1972. It was a small and charming course with a pond in the middle – "Just the place to find a body", Francis remarked – and the book was all about a corpse discovered in the pond at the Oslo racecourse. .... [more]

He wrote a book a year, the most recent in collaboration with his son.

[The book covers are from copies I own.]

BBC News - Author Dick Francis dies aged 89, Dick Francis - Telegraph

"If you don’t like the truth about yourself..."

From Michael Novak, "On Loving Karen":

St Thomas (Aquinas) wrote, “Of all friendships,
Marriage is by far the greatest.”
I used to tell my classes that,
And say that it is true.
The only thing – I used to warn – is this:
If you don’t like the truth about yourself,
Then don’t get married.
When you live close in,
Illusions are expensive.
So once the honeymoon is over,
Your lover's duty is
To puncture every one of yours —
One by painful one.
My lover pricked an awful lot of mine.
Especially my conceits.

I'm single — never married, so I can't judge with any authority — but that rings true. Is it? The verse is from a poem remembering his wife with love, respect and affection. They were together for almost fifty years.

On Loving Karen | First Things

"Thinking about worship is a different thing from worshiping"

Our pastor used this quotation from C.S. Lewis in the sermon this morning:

.... Every church service is a structure of acts and words through which we receive a sacrament, or repent, or supplicate, or adore. And it enables us to do these things best—if you like, it ‘works’ best—when, through long familiarity, we don’t have to think about it. As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance. A good shoe is a shoe you don’t notice. Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling. The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.

But every novelty prevents this. It fixes our attention on the service itself; and thinking about worship is a different thing from worshiping. ....

C.S. Lewis, Letters to Malcolm: Chiefly on Prayer, Harcout, Brace & World, 1963, pp. 4-5.

"Groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong"

I dislike "Presidents' Day." Firstly, because I do not celebrate all of our Presidents. Secondly, because I don't think creating three day weekends is a sufficient justification for messing up legitimate and important national commemorations. Their birthdays were appropriate times to honor Washington and Lincoln. Today is Lincoln's birthday.

Early in 1860 Abraham Lincoln traveled east to New York City. He had been invited to deliver a speech. He was not yet the Republican candidate for President, but this effort would introduce him in the east, and, as it happened, greatly increase his credibility as a candidate. The issue was, as it had been for years, whether slavery could be extended into the territories. For those on both sides of the question, the issue was crucial. The Senate was evenly balanced with an equal number of Senators from slave states and free states. As territories became states it became increasingly likely an abolitionist majority would take control. Lincoln opposed the extension of slavery — although not its immediate abolition where it already existed — and everyone knew his position would result in eventual, but inevitable, abolition. The speech was delivered at the Cooper Union on February 27, and is thus known as the "Cooper Union Address"

An eyewitness that evening said, "When Lincoln rose to speak, I was greatly disappointed. He was tall, tall, — oh, how tall! and so angular and awkward that I had, for an instant, a feeling of pity for so ungainly a man." However, once Lincoln warmed up, "his face lighted up as with an inward fire; the whole man was transfigured. I forgot his clothes, his personal appearance, and his individual peculiarities. Presently, forgetting myself, I was on my feet like the rest, yelling like a wild Indian, cheering this wonderful man."

.... If slavery is right, all words, acts, laws, and constitutions against it, are themselves wrong, and should be silenced, and swept away. If it is right, we cannot justly object to its nationality — its universality; if it is wrong, they cannot justly insist upon its extension — its enlargement. All they ask, we could readily grant, if we thought slavery right; all we ask, they could as readily grant, if they thought it wrong. Their thinking it right, and our thinking it wrong, is the precise fact upon which depends the whole controversy. Thinking it right, as they do, they are not to blame for desiring its full recognition, as being right; but, thinking it wrong, as we do, can we yield to them? Can we cast our votes with their view, and against our own? In view of our moral, social, and political responsibilities, can we do this?

Wrong as we think slavery is, we can yet afford to let it alone where it is, because that much is due to the necessity arising from its actual presence in the nation; but can we, while our votes will prevent it, allow it to spread into the National Territories, and to overrun us here in these Free States? If our sense of duty forbids this, then let us stand by our duty, fearlessly and effectively. Let us be diverted by none of those sophistical contrivances wherewith we are so industriously plied and belabored — contrivances such as groping for some middle ground between the right and the wrong, vain as the search for a man who should be neither a living man nor a dead man — such as a policy of "don't care" on a question about which all true men do care — such as Union appeals beseeching true Union men to yield to Disunionists, reversing the divine rule, and calling, not the sinners, but the righteous to repentance — such as invocations to Washington, imploring men to unsay what Washington said, and undo what Washington did.

Neither let us be slandered from our duty by false accusations against us, nor frightened from it by menaces of destruction to the Government nor of dungeons to ourselves. LET US HAVE FAITH THAT RIGHT MAKES MIGHT, AND IN THAT FAITH, LET US, TO THE END, DARE TO DO OUR DUTY AS WE UNDERSTAND IT.

Abraham Lincoln's Cooper Union Address

"Thanks be to God..."

Ray Ortlund, this morning:

My dad used to say to me, when I was a kid, “Listen, son. Half-hearted Christians are the most miserable people of all. They know enough to feel guilty, but they haven’t gone far enough with Christ to be happy. Be wholehearted for him!”

I used to roll my eyes when you said that. I don’t any more.

And, also this morning, from Luke Stamps, "'My Christ': Finding Objective Assurance in the Gospel":

Sooner or later, most Christians will struggle with assurance of salvation. For some of us, the struggle takes the form of an agonizing spiritual depression. We wander in the wilderness of doubt, questioning our salvation or even questioning the love and grace of God. For others, the struggle is more mundane. We live daily with perpetual guilt feelings because of some past sin or some present battle with the flesh. Though we claim to believe the gospel of free grace, we operate in our Christian lives as if God were weighing our actions moment-by-moment in order to see if we are worthy of his acceptance. And even among those who struggle with self-righteous legalism, which seems to be at the other end of the spectrum, few can persist long in such a course without some nagging doubt about their own performance before God. [....]

The ultimate ground of our assurance does not lie inside of us but outside of us—indeed, above us, seated at the right hand of the Father. So, when death and hell tempt us to doubt our salvation or to live in perpetual guilt over forgiven sin, our answer to the enemy’s accusations is never, “My righteousness,” but always, “My Christ.”

Wholehearted – Ray Ortlund, “My Christ”: Finding Objective Assurance in the Gospel

Che

Although I doubt that admirers of the sadistic murderer, Che Guevara, are likely to visit this blog, I offer the following as another reason to hold in contempt [or pity] those who persist in wearing his image:

“The Negro is indolent and spends his money on frivolities and booze, whereas the European is forward-looking, organized and intelligent,” wrote Ernesto “Che” Guevara in his diaries. When during a 1959 press conference a Cuban black asked Guevara, “what his Revolution would do for blacks?” Che sneered: “we’ll do for blacks exactly what blacks did for the Cuban revolution. By which I mean: nothing!”

» Viva la Causa: MSM Dupes Celebrate the Racist Roots of the Castro/Che Revolution - Big Journalism

A testimony that gives hope

Michael Spencer, the Internet Monk, is very ill. We are each mortal, every one of us will die, but illness forces us to confront that truth which we can otherwise so easily ignore. The Internet Monk writes that "Real Apologetics" are those that can speak to the dying:

.... All the affirmations to God as creator and designer are fine, but it is as the God of the dying that the Christian has a testimony to give that absolutely no one else can give.

We need to remember that each day dying people are waiting for the word of death and RESURRECTION.

The are a lot of different kinds of Good News, but there is little good news in “My argument scored more points than your argument.” But the news that “Christ is risen!” really is Good News for one kind of person: The person who is dying. .... [more]

From Michael : 2/10/10: Real Apologetics | internetmonk.com

Going beyond genuine tolerance

A good essay by Mark L.Y. Chan, a resident of Singapore where Christians must, by necessity, work out how to live among other faiths, and how to answer those who argue that all spirituality leads to the same place: "Sowing Subversion in the Field of Relativism":

.... Real tolerance entails putting up with what one considers to be error. Precisely because there are genuine differences between people, we see tolerance as a virtue.

By insisting that there is no such thing as universal truth, except the universal truth that there is no such thing as universal truth, relativism is as absolutist as the claim that Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life. One cannot insist with the pluralist that all religious and moral truth claims are equally valid, and at the same time maintain with the relativist that there is no one ultimate truth that alone makes sense of the diversity of truth claims.

The Christian faith condemns arrogance and an attitude of superiority toward people of other faiths and, for that matter, people of no faith. ....

Christians are called to love rather than tolerate people, and in so doing to mirror God's love for all people. This includes ardent relativists, sanguine pluralists, and pugnacious atheists. In commending the truth in the face of relativism, we must keep in mind that we are at root dealing with people, not cold ideas. The relativist is not just a representative of a worldview but a flesh-and-blood person with all the needs and longings of a human made in God's image. More important than winning the argument against relativism is winning the relativist for Christ. ....

Meeting people of all faiths and persuasions at the level of our common humanity is a good starting place to share the truth of Christ. In the safety of genuine friendship, where trust is earned and respected, people can honestly question their fundamental assumptions. Christians can sow seeds of subversion in the field of relativism by raising questions about the adequacy of moral relativism as a guide for living. Can one really live without absolute truth? How many are actually persuaded that there is no difference between Mother Teresa and Pol Pot? ....

To believe in absolute truth is to run counter to the spirit of the age. We can expect to be ridiculed, ostracized, and opposed. We need to be reminded that the one who was Truth Incarnate, the one John describes as "full of grace and truth," became Truth Crucified at the hands of those bent on snuffing out the light of truth. Darkness did not have the last word. Light pierced the tomb of Jesus, and in the resurrection of Christ, we have Truth Vindicated. .... [more]

Sowing Subversion in the Field of Relativism | The Global Conversation

Ian Carmichael, RIP

Ian Carmichael died today. He was a pleasure. I think I first encountered his work in the PBS broadcasts of Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. He made a pretty good Wimsey but the parts I enjoyed him in most were in some of the early films, particularly Lucky Jim and I'm All Right, Jack. From the Guardian obituary:

.... Playing the archetypal silly ass was the sometimes reluctant business of the stage, film and television actor Ian Carmichael, who has died aged 89. In the public mind he became the best-known postwar example of a characteristic British type — the personally appealing blithering idiot who somehow survives, and sometimes even gets the girl. One of his most characteristic and memorable sorties in this field was his portrayal of Kingsley Amis's Lucky Jim — the anti-hero James Dixon, who savaged the pretensions of academia, as Amis had himself sometimes clashed with academia when he was a lecturer at Swansea. Appearing in John and Roy Boulting's 1957 film, he was able to suggest an unruly but amiable spirit at the end of its tether, his great horsey teeth exposed in the strained grimace that often greeted disaster.

Carmichael made several more hugely popular comedy films with the Boultings in the second half of the 1950s, including Private's Progress, Brothers In Law and I'm All Right Jack, but always wanted to do more straight roles. The nearest he came to it was his Lord Peter Wimsey in the television series based on Dorothy L Sayers's amateur detective (1972-75), a role he felt very happy in. .... (more)

Ian Carmichael at Amazon.

Ian Carmichael obituary | Television & radio | guardian.co.uk

Denialism and anthropogenic global warming

Stephen M. Barr is a Christian and a professor of physics, whose writing about the relationship of Christianity to science is invariably interesting and helpful. He has an article at First Things, "The End of Intelligent Design?," critical of ID, that, as might be expected, elicited considerable comment — especially criticism from those who have taken comfort from the theory. One of his defenders:

The common thread running through all the comments critical of Barr is the same one running through attacks on AGW: outright denial. ....

Barr isn't entirely happy about being defended in this way:

.... Are AGW "deniers" mostly "incompetents", as Mr. Dutch says? Is he talking about "deniers" among the general public? If so, then most AGW "believers" have no more competence in climatology than most AGW "deniers". Therefore, I assume Mr. Dutch is talking about scientists. There are highly competent scientists who are skeptical about the extent of AGW, such as Richard S. Lindzen of MIT, one of the top climatologists in the world, and Will Happer of Princeton. For their trouble, they have been subject to all sorts of abuse and defamation.

It would be comforting to think that the only reason the scientific community ever ignores criticism of its theories is that it comes from incompetents. Unfortunately, the history of science provides many counter-examples. It is true that science is self-correcting. But the self-correction sometimes takes a long time, during which good ideas may be ignored or suppressed, and careers destroyed. I have met quite a few very good scientists who are quite skeptical of the extent of AGW, but most keep their views to themselves. It is not a healthy climate right now in the scientific world when it comes to the AGW issue. AGW has become such a "progressive cause", that ideology has begun to to distort the ordinary processes of scientific discussion.

The End of Intelligent Design? | First Things

"On my honor..."

Joe Carter observes the centennial of the Boy Scouts of America with an appreciation of "The Most Influential Conservative Book Ever Produced in America" and the virtues it endorses:

Cultural critic Paul Fussell once wrote that the Boy Scout Handbook is “among the very few remaining popular repositories of something like classical ethics, deriving from Aristotle and Cicero.” Indeed, it is literally a vade mecum on virtue ethics. Consider, for example, the Scout oath:

On my honor I will do my best
To do my duty to God and my country
and to obey the Scout Law;
To help other people at all times;
To keep myself physically strong,
mentally awake, and morally straight.

And then there is the Scout Motto (“Be Prepared”) and the 12 point Scout Law which includes the politically incorrect admonition to be reverent: “A Scout is reverent toward God. He is faithful in his religious duties. He respects the beliefs of others.”

Such an earnest and irony-free worldview is naturally antithetical to the South Park-style mock-the-world moronity that pervades the culture. In a society that combines libertarian Me-ism with a liberal nanny state that suckles “men without chests,” it is not surprising that the ranks of Boy Scouts are dwindling (Scouting is down 11 percent over the last decade). But we should be cheerful that an institution where self-sacrifice and manly virtues are encouraged manages to survive at all. .... [more]

Thanks to Mark for the reference.

The Most Influential Conservative Book Ever Produced in America » First Thoughts | A First Things Blog

Sports

This morning I read two posts about the relationship of the faith to sports. Although addressing rather different aspects, each of them, it seems to me, is about keeping things in proportion.

First, Michael Mckinley, at the 9Marks Blog: "The New York Times seems to be on a mission to make Christians look stupid, and we keep giving them the stick with which to beat us about the head and neck." He is referring to an article about how some churches are using mixed martial arts as an evangelistic tool. Mckinley has some concerns about that approach:

1. It's derivative and unoriginal. It was lame when Billy Sunday was doing it 100 years ago.
2. It makes the gospel man-centered. Coming to Jesus isn't a way for you to deal with your daddy issues. I get it, your dad didn't hug you when you were little and you want to be a different kind of man. How about you go hug your kid then? Jesus didn't come to help you get in touch with your inner MMA fighter.
3. Like it or not, the gospel is at least in part about weakness. It's about the almighty becoming weak to save us. It's about us being helpless and unable in our sins. There's no way to Christ that doesn't start with brokenness and an admission of impotence. Yes, Jesus is the strong man who binds the adversary, but he bound him by suffering, humiliation, and weakness.
4. It discourages and mocks godly men who aren't macho. There is an undercurrent of disdain in all of this. Proponents of this testosterone Christianity can't help but take shots at guys who wear pastels and drink cappuccino. You might not like guys with manicures, but there's absolutely nothing morally wrong with it. A reserved, quiet, well-groomed man can be a good Christian. Believe it or not. [more]

Kevin DeYoung writes about a Christianity Today cover article, "Sports Fanatics." DeYoung responds at length, thinks the concerns are overwrought, and concludes "A Simpler View of Sports" with this:

Hoffman [the author of the article], it seems, wants sports to be in the realm of special grace, where I am happy to have them in the world of common grace. Sports are games. They’re fun. They can bring out the best in us and the worst, just like everything else in life. They are blessings. And they can be idols. If Hoffman had talked about that, I would be all over it. God knows we need conviction for deifying sports teams and sports stars.

But in the end, I don’t think a theology of sports needs to be terribly complicated. Sports is yet another avenue to live out rebellion or another way to glorify God. But the glory is not because the perfect backstroke gives us a glimpse of heavenly play and heavenly bodies. Rather, because the backstroker, or point guard, or slot receiver, is humble, honest, and works hard unto the Lord. Let’s not make things more difficult than they have to be. Sports can be a waste of time, a wasteland of vice, or an oasis of God-glorifying people and principles. It depends on what you make it. [more]

Church Matters: The 9Marks Blog, A Simpler View of Sports – Kevin DeYoung

The first radical?

I've known of Saul Alinsky since the early seventies when "Alinsky tactics" were used by a group trying to take control of our teachers' union. Many of them also considered themselves Marxists, although I doubt many of them would have been survivors if the Revolution they yearned for had actually come. Alinsky wrote a manual for activists, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals (1971), which has received a lot of attention again recently because President Obama is thought to be a disciple of its methods. My objections to many of Alinsky's "rules" were [are] ethical, but I hadn't thought about the book's dedication for a long time:

Incidentally the employers of Alinsky tactics failed in our case, frustrated by an alliance of moderates, liberals, and a few conservatives [there were only a few conservatives among Madison teachers then - there are fewer now].

I have hardly begun...

False humility is Pride by another name, but genuine faith leads to genuine humility. That is because growing in Christ undoubtedly will make us more conscious of our inadequacy, not less. Mark Galli, in "Are We Transformed Yet?":

I think one of the most spiritually dangerous practices today is encouraging people—in small groups or in front of the church or even in print—to talk about how God has transformed them. ....

Those who share such testimonies cannot but be tempted, as was the Pharisee in Jesus' parable: "Lord, I thank thee that I am transformed, that I am not like this untransformed fellow next to me." And those who hear such testimonies find themselves praying, "Lord, why am I still struggling with this and that; why am I not like this transformed person?" ....

...[T]he mature Paul's most memorable lines do not highlight his transformation as much as his lack of transformation! For example, in the letter to the Romans, he writes in a classic passage,

For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. … So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members (Rom. 7:19-23)

And in his first letter to Timothy, he writes,

The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. (1 Tim. 1:15-16)

[....]

...[T]hose who are truly being transformed into Christ find it fascinating to look not at what they've become (changed in this way or that) but at what they have yet to become. The so-called progress they've made is so paltry and so negligible compared to the surpassing worth of the vision that lies ahead of them—a vision of Jesus Christ in glory. ....

Naturally, with a clear vision of the glorious Christ, what can they say about themselves but that they are the greatest of sinners, who have hardly begun to repent? .... [more]

Are We Transformed Yet? | Christianity Today | A Magazine of Evangelical Conviction

Homelanders

Andrew Klavan wanted to write a series of books of the sort he would have enjoyed when young. His intended audience was boys between 12 and 16, but he has found a much wider one, including me. The second of four books in "The Homelanders" series has just been published and I am already within a few pages of the end. They have much the same appeal as the Thirty Nine Steps or North by Northwest: a hero who is being pursued by everyone, alone and thrown back on his own resources. The books are suspenseful and exciting.

Klavan was interviewed by John Miller at NRO. The interview is here. Toward the end he explained part of his motive:

[W]e've allowed our kids...to forget that...there's a reason we believe in liberty. There's a reason we believe in small government. There's a reason we believe in checks and balances, and a reason too that we believe in faith...And these things can be taught again...but we're gonna have to do it. It's not gonna just happen.

He is doing a part of that with these books. The first in the series was The Last Thing I Remember. The one just out is The Long Way Home. The books constitute a continuing story so they should be read in order.

A former [retired] high school social studies teacher, I was particularly interested in Klavan's account [in the second book, pp. 47-48] of his protagonist, Charlie West's, classroom disagreement with a teacher:

.... This was another thing that always annoyed me about Mr. Sherman. When you argued with him, he didn't exactly use facts and logic. He just tried to make fun of you and change the subject and tangle you up with words so you looked bad or the class laughed at you and you got flustered and couldn't make your point. And another thing that annoyed me was that a lot of times it worked.

I glanced around at the rest of the students. They were all laughing at Mr. Sherman's zombie routine. Even Rick Donnelly, one of my best friends, was laughing over at his desk near the window. I knew Rick agreed with me about Mr. Sherman. He thought this was a great country and even wanted to go into politics when he grew up. But he was the kind of guy who never argued with teachers, who was always trying to please them and say what they wanted to hear so he would get good grades. Maybe that's how you get to be a politician.

"So what part of the Declaration don't you agree with?" I asked Mr. Sherman.

Sherman stopped waving his arms around. He smiled. "Ah, my zombielike friend, that's exactly the wrong question. The question is: What part of it can you prove to be true? Prove that we're created equal. We don't look equal to me."

"That's not what it means. It means that we're created with equal rights:"

"Prove it, Charlie. You can't. It's just something Americans have come to believe, that's all. Other people believe other things. You can't even prove that we were created, that we have a Creator in the first place. It's just something you were told and so you believe it. Go on, Zombie Guy—prove it."

I opened my mouth to answer, but I couldn't think what to say. I didn't know exactly how you would prove something like that. Sherman made the class laugh at me again by opening his mouth and making stuttering sounds to imitate my confusion: "Uh, uh, uh!"

Then the bell rang. That was the end of class. ....

The books are published by Thomas Nelson, a Christian publishing house, and Charlie West is a believably portrayed Christian. Klavan has written thrillers for adults which might not be ideal for adolescents but these books are safe for just about anyone — and a good, compulsive, quick read too.

Update [2/9]: Another excerpt from The Long Way Home, this one illustrating how well Klavan writes action.

Andrew Klavan on The Long Way Home

"The echo of the tune we have not heard"

John Piper begins his explanation of the importance of C.S. Lewis by describing various ways he thinks Lewis's theology inadequate. Some evangelicals consider such problems sufficient reason to dismiss Lewis entirely. Piper doesn't, and explains why in "Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul," [listen here]:

.... The answer lies in the way that the experience of Joy and the defense of Truth come together in Lewis’s life and writings. The way Lewis deals with these two things—Joy and Truth—is so radically different from Liberal theology and emergent postmodern slipperiness that he is simply in another world—a world where I am totally at home, and where I find both my heart and my mind awakened and made more alive and perceptive and responsive and earnest and hopeful and amazed and passionate for the glory of God every time I turn to C. S. Lewis. It’s this combination of experiencing the stab of God-shaped joy and defending objective, absolute Truth, because of the absolute Reality of God, that sets Lewis apart as unparalleled in the modern world. To my knowledge, there is simply no one else who puts these two things together the way Lewis does. [....]

Piper explains exactly how important Lewis's presentation of these two themes have been to his understanding. With respect to "Joy," part of what Piper writes (I've omitted Piper's footnotes):

The experience of this Joy is the most important theme of his life. He says so. It gives unity to everything else. He said of this experience, “In a sense the central story of my life is about nothing else.” Very seldom does a writer tell us what he believes is the central theme of his life. Lewis does tell us. Everything in his life gains its deepest meaning from its connection with this.

Here’s the closest thing that Lewis gives to a definition of this Joy: It is the experience “of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” This is why he chose the word Joy rather than “desire” or “longing” or “Sehnsucht” when writing his autobiography—because those words failed to convey the desirability of the longing itself.

I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that any one who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is the kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world. But then Joy is never in our power and pleasure often is.

Or again he says, “Joy is distinct not only from pleasure in general but even from aesthetic pleasure. It must have the stab, the pang, the inconsolable longing.” So on the one hand, Joy has this dimension of “inconsolable longing,” aching, yearning for something you don’t have. But on the other hand, the longing and aching and yearning is itself pleasurable. It is in itself not just a wanting to have but a having.

True, it was desire, not possession. But then what I had felt on the walk had also been desire, and only possession in so far as that kind of desire is itself desirable, is the fullest possession we can know on earth; or rather, because the very nature of Joy makes nonsense of our common distinction between having and wanting. There, to have is to want to want is to have. Thus, the very moment when I longed to be stabbed again, was itself again such a stabbing.

Alan Jacobs is right to say, “Nothing was closer to the core of his being than this experience.” And perhaps what sealed its significance for Lewis is that it brought him to Christ. He was an atheist in his twenties, but relentlessly God was pursuing him through the experience of “inconsolable longing.” And he was finding that the writers who awakened it most often were Christian writers. (....)

Lewis looked back on all his experiences of Joy differently now. Now he knew why the desire was inconsolable, and yet pleasant. It was a desire for God. It was evidence that he was made for God.

The books or the music in which we thought the beauty was located will betray us if we trust to them; it was not in them, it only came through them, and what came through them was longing. These things—the beauty, the memory of our own past—are good images of what we really desire; but if they are mistaken for the thing itself, they turn into dumb idols, breaking the hearts of their worshipers. For they are not the thing itself; they are only the scent of a flower we have not found, the echo of the tune we have not heard, news from a country we have never yet visited.

All his life, he said, “an unattainable ecstasy has hovered just beyond the grasp of [my] consciousness.” “The sweetest thing of all my life has been the longing . . . to find the place where all the beauty came from.” But when Lewis was born again to see the glory of God in Christ, he never said again that he didn’t know where the beauty came from. Now he knew where all the joy was pointing. On the last page of his autobiography, he explained the difference in his experience of Joy now and before.

I believe...that the old stab, the old bittersweet, has come to me as often and as sharply since my conversion as at any time of my life whatever. But I now know that the experience, considered as a state of my own mind, had never had the kind of importance I once gave it. It was valuable only as a pointer to something other and outer. While that other was in doubt, the pointer naturally loomed large in my thoughts. When we are lost in the woods the site of the signpost is a great matter. He who first sees it cries, ‘Look!’ The whole party gathers around and stares. But when we have found the road and are passing signposts every few miles, we shall not stop and stare. They will encourage us and we shall be grateful to the authority that set them up. But we shall not stop and stare, or not much; not on this road, though their pillars are of silver and their lettering of gold. ‘We would be at Jerusalem.’

So Lewis stopped turning Joy into an idol when he found, by grace, that it was “a pointer to something other and outer,” namely to God. Clyde Kilby gave the highest estimation of this theme in Lewis:

[For Lewis Joy is] a desire which no natural happiness can ever satisfy, the lifelong pointer toward heaven . . . which gave us such delight and yet are the meager signs of the true rapture He has in heaven for redeemed souls. . . . The culmination of Sehnsucht [Longing, Joy] in the rhapsodic joy of heaven is, for me at least the strongest single element in Lewis. In one way or other it hovers over nearly every one of his books and suggests to me that Lewis’s apocalyptic vision is perhaps more real than that of anyone since St. John on Patmos.

There is much more, including discussion of Lewis on objective Truth, "chronological snobbery," and so on.

Update [2/5]: Desiring God has put video of Piper's address online:

Lessons from an Inconsolable Soul :: Desiring God Christian Resource Library