Nathan Campbell – Page 156

Twelve things I would change about the college experience

As a follow up to my last post about college related stress, and on a slightly similar note, here are some things I would change about the Bible College/Seminary (for American Readers) experience. You can sum up these points with “make the college experience more reflective of real life.” I have some other thoughts about the process the Presbyterian Church uses for sorting out its candidates. But I’ll keep this general for the sake of maintaining my position as a candidate…

Make ministry more of a priority
I feel like I’ve been sucked out of any sense of normal church life (well, normal based on the last eight years of heavy involvement in church life) by the college experience. I’ve almost forgotten what its like to talk to somebody on a week night, or talk about anything other than what I’ve learned or been thinking about during the week on a Sunday. It’s what people ask. And I’m often too tired or distracted to care. College students are meant to be involved in church life, as a candidate I’m meant to do ten hours a week… But count off the hours of church on a Sunday (twice), Bible Study, and a Staff meeting and my time is up. This may be my bias against languages speaking – but I spend a lot of my time doing language grunt work, and a lot of that time wondering what the payoff is in terms of my future ministry, the answer, in the day and age of amazing computer programs and multiple reliable translations, “not a whole lot.”
Teach more practical stuff, earlier
Maybe if I’d done MTS I wouldn’t be saying this – but shouldn’t our facility for training and equipping people for ministry be training and equipping people for ministry. I’m sure most ministry stuff is better caught than taught – but having some formal apologetics training, and a bit of pastoral care/counselling training from the outset would be terrific, and ending up with some how to do the business of church would be nice too. Just thinking about the practical side of ministry, and how things are going to work in the real world when rubber meets road, would be a more valuable exercise than most language classes (there it is again). Role playing, talking to experts, practical stuff that gives you some idea at how you might tackle awkward pastoral issues wold be heaps more useful than hoping you get some really sticky situations in your 10 hours of parish time.
Get students thinking about modern communication technology
Call me biased, but I reckon every Bible College student should blog. Blogging helps to find a written voice. It’s a chance to articulate thoughts on issues raised in class. It’s a chance to be creative, and to think about application. It’s a chance to get ideas out into the world. Blogs could even be part of the assessment process. Vocational ministry is about communication. Bible College students should be thinking about how to use technology, social networking, emails, anything they can get their hands on – for the sake of the kingdom. Blogging is great for crystallising thoughts. They should not only have to blog, but they should have to post comments on the ideas of their friends (on their blogs). This is only a partly serious suggestion. But most marketing people think the Internet is the future – so we have to encourage people in ministry to be thinking about how it fits with their future. The college itself needs to think about how to use the web better, both in terms of its own homepage and the wider world of social networking, blogging, and multimedia stuff.
Make students teach RE as a community service/part of the curriculum
Why are we keeping young, dedicated people who are being educated about the Bible out of what is a golden opportunity for loving and serving our communities.
Equip students better mentally to cope with Scholarship
Rather than spending a week before college starts grappling with the Greek and Hebrew alphabets – we should be helping prepare students for the challenge of dealing with stupid “Emperor’s New Clothes” scholars are going to present to their thinking. Academia rewards new and exciting ideas – which gives rise to a lot of people getting excited about really dumb stuff that shouldn’t be taken seriously past showing why it’s dumb. College should not be a time where you lose your faith and have doubts preyed on by scholars with an agenda who you’re not really warned about. Some scholars are wolves in wool
Modernise assessment processes (get with the programs)
Seriously. Who uses pen and paper for anything other than taking phone messages (other than GTD people) any more? Why am I expected to lug a pen into an exam and scrawl illegibly as fast as I can answering four questions in 2 hours? Get with the times. Students inevitably write slower than their ancestors, and type faster. Concerns about plagiarism or cheating with the power of the Internet are both stupid and unfounded – a) because you can check for plagiarism as quick as you can say “google” and b) because the whole idea of a robust education is getting people to interact with the ideas that are out there – and it’s stupider to expect students to rote learn said ideas in order to regurgitate them in an exam situation. There are tens of good computer programs out there aimed at making the art of theology easier – why aren’t these being deliberately included in the curriculum so that a lifetime of sermon preparation/Bible teaching is also easier?
Make language learning more reflective of reality, and more useful
Most ministers I speak to who use Greek and Hebrew (and its a minority) do it with the aid of books and computer software. And yet we’re expected to memorise paradigms and rote learn vocab in order to spurt it out on demand. I can’t imagine that situation ever arising in the real world… “Excuse me Reverend, could you tell me, on the spot, why this word in my KJV is translated in that way” – aren’t we better off teaching (and I’ve got to give my Hebrew lecturer credit here) people to understand the way the language works (like an animal), equipping students to dissect words and getting a bit of linguistic theory under their belts to avoid illegitimate totality transfers and to understand semantic ranges. At the moment we spend so much time doing rote learning stuff and writing out paradigms until our fingers and eyes bleed that we’ve got almost no time to look at the actual Bible or think about any of the other three subjects.
Get rid of exams
Why do we think asking for regurgitation in two hours, on paper, is a good way to assess thirteen weeks’ worth of work? No one does, and it isn’t. Assessment on a regular basis (to encourage people to keep up with the work – rather than trying to cram it into the short term memory) that is more closely modeled on the real world (discussions, presentations etc) is surely a better gauge of a person’s progress. Show some initiative and encourage people based on educational notions of learning styles and the like.
Make assessment marking less arbitrary (death to word limits)
My own, very personal bugbear,¹ is the word limit. Word limits are entirely arbitrary. I am not suggesting no limit on writing – but to use words is dumb. It misunderstands language. It actually encourages dense rather than flowing writing, and complexity over simplicity. Let me explain. Every sentence is an idea. That sentence was five words. My last three sentences used a total of thirteen words. Other people may use the same number of words to express less, others more. Others may use the same number of words but triple the number of syllables, or enhance the complexity of the words they use. We all know that shift+f7 gives you a thesaurus that is capable of turning your rudimentary slang into highbrow academia. Essays should be given a qualitative assessment, not a quantitative one. Students should be penalised for including stuff that’s irrelevant to their argument – but they should not be penalised if their argument required extra words because it needed them. And if you want a limit in order to make the lecturer’s job easier when it comes to marking – set a typeface, type size, and line spacing – and then set a page limit. That will encourage more concise writing. That’s how journalists do it too. You write in column inches, not in word counts (unless you’re a freelancer paid by the word). And you cut stuff from the bottom if you have to edit it. Lecturers should stop reading when the writing gets boring. That’s real life. It’s also reflective of preaching (where you should go as long as you’re interesting – according to QTC’s preaching lecturer). The vast majority of my time writing assignments is trying to cut five hundred words from an assignment that doesn’t have five hundred words to spare. The only options seem to be to lose substantial and important logical steps to an argument, or to go over the word limit and cop a penalty. If anybody knows how to, in 2,000 words, interact with scholarship (at least 10 peer reviewed articles), the Bible, and other primary documents while answering a question that is contentious enough to be at the scholarly coalface, then please, let me know.
Make assessment criteria clearer (and stick to it)
The Australian College of Theology provides guidelines for assessing essays that almost universally get ignored (so far as I can tell). Of the five essays I’ve had marked thus far – only one referred directly to this criteria in terms of the mark given, the rest seemed just to go with some sort of vibe (though the marks have all been fairly similar).
Encourage the development of the fruit of the Spirit above the fruit of the head
I’ve chatted to a few people disillusioned with the college process online, and in real life, in the last little while – and if a criticism comes up enough, from enough different people, sooner or later you’ve got to wonder if it has merit. Assessment of someone’s capability to do ministry is almost always based not on what they know, but if they know God. And if they are suitably gifted. I don’t know how the college can do his better – but I don’t think stress, diarrhea, grumpiness, worry, academic envy, and tiredness, nor did I notice broad knowledge of scholarly opinions, Greek parsing, or Hebrew pronunciation mentioned as desirable attributes in Galatians 5 (and my Greek isn’t that bad, nor is the semantic range of the items in the list that broad).
Start later, finish later (or at the same time)
Again, a personal bugbear. Our college advertises that it finishes in time for students to beat peak hour home. Which is great. What they don’t advertise is that you have to drive to college in peak hour. We live 17 km from the college (according to the GPS) and it takes 40 minutes to get there in peak hour, and 25 minutes off peak. Peak hour seems to start at about 3pm anyway – so the trip home isn’t substantially faster. And seriously, who is at their best in an 8.30 class?

¹ I know I break this rule a lot here – I write too many words. But seriously. I’m a journalist. Brevity is my thing. You will find almost no adjectives in my writing. I don’t pad out my sentences with flowery language. I might choose a cool noun here or there, but I try to carry my writing with my vocab in one word bursts. I try to be a sniper rifle, not a shotgun. Word choice is about precision, not about scattering a few words in the breeze hoping one will hit the target.

November 3, 2010

How to make a font palette

I like reading about typography. I’m pretty sure most of you don’t. But here’s a nice little guide to putting a bunch of fonts together on a design from fontsters Hoefler & Frere-Jones.

I won’t bore you with the all the details, but looking that good is expensive (those fonts combined cost over $400).

There are four principles in total. They’re expounded in the article.

November 3, 2010

On Stress and Bible College and Ministry

I’ve never been the type for stress. I pride myself on my relaxed disposition and laissez-fair approach to life. Life on cruise control. That’s my default. But in the last few weeks I’ve been wracked by crippling stomach cramps and other weirdness of the belly. Well they weren’t crippling. That may have been hyperbolic. But they were bad. The source of such stress, so far as I can tell, is at least partly college. Bible College. I’ve spoken to a few other past and present students of Bible Colleges near and far. And they’ve reported similar symptoms and the knowledge of others also feeling similar symptoms. But why is it so. It’s Bible College.

Shouldn’t Bible College be an encouraging, edifying and nurturing experience full of grace and light? Well yes. And mostly it is. But for some reason the rationale that “what I’m doing has eternal significance” keeps creeping in. I want to turn every stone in every essay, I want to get every mark possible, not because I want marks, but because I don’t want to lose them lest they be the result of some deficiency in my knowledge that will find an outworking twenty years down the track. It’s almost worth becoming Baptist (simply because then I don’t have to get a degree).

When I studied Journalism I didn’t care. I just wanted the bit of paper, and the job. Uni was a breeze. I learned the essentials, came out (thanks to a natural inclination to journalism) able to do the job I was hired to do. I had matched certain areas of gifting with equipping. And it didn’t hurt.

Bible College, especially Bible College for the purpose of vocational ministry training, is ostensibly seeking to do the same thing, So what’s the difference?

Couple the stress of college with the increasing prevalence of ministry burnout, and stressed ministers (with all sorts of associated health problems) and I think we’ve got symptoms of a wider problem. Not to mention the burnout going on in the pews – roster fatigue, the problems associated with over-programming, and the burdens of underparticipation where the few do the work of the many.

Christian life is meant to be full of trials and sufferings, perhaps we’ve simply replaced external persecution with internal persecution in order to develop a whole new band of martyrs.

Something tells me that if ministry, training for ministry, and participating in church life is causing actual physical and mental health problems then we’re doing it wrong.

November 3, 2010

O’Donovan on politics and the pulpit

Oliver O’Donovan was interviewed about the American elections, democracy, and the Christian. He said some good stuff (which you can read here, or summarised here at Between Two Worlds).

The essential political duties we owe to our neighbours are those of living together with them peacefully under the law, and of giving proper support to the institutions of government that uphold the law. It is very unglamorous, and very necessary. To this essential basis a democratic polity has added the specific responsibility of voting in elections. To perform that democratic task well is quite difficult. It means listening carefully to political debates and sifting the true from the false in a self-questioning way, aware of the subtle influences of prejudice upon ourselves as well as upon others. It means to be open to persuasion, ready to change one’s mind. It means achieving a clear sense of the difference between what we can and must decide and what we cannot and should not try to decide.

Then he said this. Which I’m not sure I agree with:

“The “average American in the pew” seems not uncommonly to be told (or so it appears to us as we listen in across the Atlantic Ocean) that she or he has much larger political responsibilities than this: to make the Gospel heard in public life, to bring in the Kingdom of God and to make a better world, and so on.”

These can be problematic if you think making the gospel heard and bringing in the kingdom means stamping Christianity on the forehead of those who aren’t Christians. Which some do. But they do also, to me, sound like a fair summary of our role as Christians living in society (depending on how you think you bring about the Kingdom).

Some of these tasks are indeed tasks of the Church, which all Christians share, but not distinctively political. Some are political, but not tasks of the Church so much as promises of the work of the Spirit of God, for which we must pray and wait—while fulfilling our mission and doing the work that comes to our hand—humbly and without pompous pretensions.

Hang on. What? How are these two statements mutually exclusive in the way he frames them? How are some of those things he lists “political” but not tasks of the church? Or the other way around? How is “doing the work that comes to hand” not the same as making the gospel heard, bringing in the kingdom of God and making a better world? I would have thought that was exactly what the work that comes to our hand was… How are they not both political and the task of the church through the work of the Spirit which we pray and wait for… while also acting.

I might be getting this all wrong, but it often seems that this corrective of the old thinking has chucked out baby and bath water by insisting on the same dichotomy from the other side of the spectrum. People used to say “preach the gospel, preach the gospel, preach the gospel” and good works and loving people kind of got pushed to the side so far as the church is concerned. And that’s bad. But the answer isn’t to say “do good works, do good works, do good works.” Isn’t “do good works while preaching the gospel/preach the gospel while doing good works” a better way forward.

Maybe the real distinction between my thinking and O’Donovan’s here is how the Spirit works – I don’t necessarily think we sit and wait for the spirit to move, I think we move, praying and trusting that the Spirit will work through our actions. I don’t see “doing the work before us” as distinct from waiting on the Spirit.

Finally, he offers some worthwhile thoughts on how to talk about politics from the pulpit, which I’ve summarised below.

Some Don’ts

Don’t act as if you are a well informed pundit with inside knowledge just because you’re a preacher: “Political discernment is not a gift of the Spirit promised to an ordained minister with the laying on of hands. It is more than probable that a congregation will contain some who are better informed and have better judgment than their clergy.
Know what to focus on, and what to ignore: “Not every wave of political enthusiasm deserves the attention of the church in its liturgy. Judging when political questions merit prophetic commentary requires a cool head and a theological sense of priorities.”
Don’t buy into the idolatry of modern politics: “The worship that the principalities and powers seek to exact from mankind is a kind of feverish excitement. The first business of the church is to refuse them that worship. There are many times – and surely a major Election is one of them – when the most pointed political criticism imaginable is to talk about something else.”
Don’t talk without knowing what the terms you’re using mean in both the Christian and secular political realms: “Few Christian interventions into political debate display any kind of conceptual sophistication. They sound naïve – not in the sense of being too idealistic, but simply by using words without appreciating their meaning. Every political term carries a complex freight: “rights”, “democracy”, “freedom”, “equality”, “the state”, “law”, and so on. Such an elementary blunder as using “democratic” to mean “fair” betrays a level of incompetence that disqualifies the speaker as a guide to others.”
Don’t introduce concepts with baggage without knowing how those concepts relate to others: No preacher can introduce such ideas effectively without a basic sense of their relation to each other and to the Gospel: how does civil freedom relate to evangelical freedom? how do human rights relate to the righteousness of God? Nothing is contributed if the church merely echoes the current buzz-words…
Don’t preach politics like a politician, do it ethically: “One should not go on as though one were a statesman oneself, trying to get a certain decision taken, using every argument in its favour, good or bad, that might appeal to somebody.”
Don’t be partisan: Don’t pick a side just for the sake of picking a side: “The notion that political deliberation is basically about the rival claims of competing parties is one which the church must do everything it can to challenge. Political deliberation is about understanding our situation truthfully.”
Don’t not be partisan: Sometimes the question of truth is an obvious distinction between the parties.
Don’t avoid choosing a position to avoid offending people: there is no reason to be alarmed if, on any occasion, the concern of the church opens into a critical perspective on secular political events. “To convince of sin, righteousness and judgment” is the work of the Holy Spirit (John 16:8), which must sometimes, surely, take the form of defining a position in relation to such evils as abortion, nuclear deterrence, unemployment, North-South inequities and so on.
Don’t avoid controversy for the sake of avoiding controversy: We would be less than faithful preachers of the Gospel if we made our minds never to venture onto such terrain. But to do it usefully we have to risk controversy. We will be of little use to the Holy Spirit if we save our denunciations for those evils on which we can be sure there will be little difference of opinion among our hearers.
Don’t be controversial just for the sake of presenting your opinions: “Controversy may be healthy or unhealthy. It will be unhealthy if we announce our conclusions and declare, “Take them or leave them!” It will be healthy if we lead the church through the task of Christian deliberation from first principles, so helping those who differ to find the Christian ground on which they stand and building up the church’s unity in the Gospel.

Some Dos

Rather than pretending you’re a pundit help equip the church to think through what is known about a situation.
Don’t mix messages: The pulpit may only rightly be used for addressing the church’s own concerns. Those concerns are the truth of the Gospel and all that follows from it for Christian action.
Preach politics for the purpose of fostering engaged Christian thinking and action: The justification for preaching on politics is exactly the same as that for preaching on the family or on money or on any secular concern: it assists Christians to bring an evangelical mind to bear on their responsibilities… How one speaks will be determined by what is in view, which is to assist authentic Christian deliberation.
Preach politics understanding why it’s important in a democratic setting: “Political deliberation is a responsibility of the members of the church inasmuch as they participate in a political society.”
Don’t preach to persuade to your point of view, preach to demonstrate the Biblical position on an issue: “…the argument should be a Christian one that commends itself to any Christian conscience. It is less important that those who hear you should concur in your conclusions than that they should respond positively to the principles from which you reason.
Preach Politics from the Bible: When I address political questions I almost always adopt an exegetical form of sermon-structure, follow my text and the argument that arises from it, until it points irresistibly to some theologico-political principle. Then, in the lightest way possible, I give concreteness to the principle by showing how it bears on the public issue in question.
Keep yourself out of it (mostly): “it [your own view] will be evident enough from the argument. If anyone disagrees with me, I hope that person will have been helped to articulate a more authentically Christian response, one which will take seriously the issues of principle I have raised.”
Preach to the Christian conscience: “Everyone needs to come out with a clearer sense of what is unnegotiable for Christian conscience, and what, by contrst, is merely a matter of differing emphasis or differing interpretation of a given situation.”
Aim to present the Gospel of Christ in the context of each political issue: In that way the judgment of the Spirit proves itself authentic, drawing the line between the Gospel and despair, between belief and unbelief, obedience and rebellion, and lighting the way for the confession of Christ in the centre of each new situation

November 2, 2010

A lesson from The Oatmeal: Literally

Go here. Read this. Never annoy pedants again.

November 2, 2010

How to make the man in your life tuck his shirts in

Old advice, but good advice…

From a book of tips and tricks submitted to a radio show in ages past, found at Questionable Advice.

November 2, 2010

Social media strategies for churches

I was talking to some people yesterday about churches and social media strategies. I’ve followed a bunch of people who are involved with ministries, and churches, and promoting ministries and churches on Facebook. And I think they’re doing it wrong… but what would I know.

The wrongness was the spirit of my speculative posts “Has John Piper ruined Twitter” and “Has Mark Driscoll ruined Facebook” – most churches rely on their minister posting pithy one line updates to Facebook and Twitter generating an echo effect where people retweet and like and share to their hearts content. Which is only part of the social media story, and is usually pretty lame. Blowing one’s own trumpet is never cool. No matter how good your faux-hawk is, and no matter how much you’re able to make grown men cry in your sermons. Don’t get me wrong. I appreciate Desiring God and Mars Hill, and Piper and Driscoll, and I think they contribute greatly to the global church and use the Internet brilliantly. But you’re not (unless they’re reading this) Piper or Driscoll. And if you’re a minister of a church and you’re filling my Facebook or Twitter news feeds with how much God is moving in your church, or how great your sermon was, or how great it was to spend time with your church family – and that’s all your doing – then that’s really not why I’ve added you Twitter in particular, or probably, being really honest, on Facebook. I’ve added a person, not a ministry PR machine. I want your reflections on stuff, and if you’re a minister then that will doubtless include stuff about your church and your ministry, and how much you love your people, and how awesome they all are… but please, don’t be a two dimensional caricature. You are not your church. Get a Facebook page for your ministry – but even then, don’t be lame about it. Don’t just spam people with endless things about how good the stuff they were already at was, and don’t spam them with things about upcoming events.

Social media is social. It’s meant to be interactive. The best social media strategies do what is called “seeding” content. You don’t blow your own trumpet. You get others to blow it for you. If you run a church Facebook account, or Twitter account, why not ask a bunch of tech savvy people at church to post their own thoughts, advertisements, photos or reflections to TwitFace? Why not ask people to live tweet certain events, or go home and serve their brothers and sisters by posting the thing that struck them most about the sermon. Don’t do it yourself. Why not get people to post photos of your events, get them to make them their profile pictures. Get them to talk to each other (that’ll show up in the news feed of mutual friends). Get them organically promoting events and inviting their friends personally, rather than sending out some form email.

Social media works best when it is social media – when people are participating in the production and distribution of content – rather than just contributing to the noise side of the signal to noise ratio on the internet. People’s inboxes (in all virtual forms) are so full of rubbish and spam – why not contribute some meaningful content and interactions to their lives instead of just trying to be an ever present presence online.

And if none of that seems to work, if you can’t get people saying stuff about your church online, then maybe consider this webcomic (via ChurchCrunch)…

November 1, 2010

Augustine and Jerome: A robust discussion (part 3)

So far Jerome has accused Augustine of writing a book against him, Augustine has denied it, and Jerome has basically suggested Augustine was picking a fight with him to score cheap points on the back of his fame… Jerome writes a couple of letters in succession.

Jerome to Augustine (404AD)

I have received by Cyprian, deacon, three letters, or rather three little books, at the same time, from your Excellency, containing what you call sundry questions, but what I feel to be animadversions on opinions which I have published, to answer which, if I were disposed to do it, would require a pretty large volume. Nevertheless I shall attempt to reply without exceeding the limits of a moderately long letter, and without causing delay to our brother, now in haste to depart, who only three days before the time fixed for his journey asked earnestly for a letter to take with him, in consequence of which I am compelled to pour out these sentences, such as they are, almost without premeditation, answering you in a rambling effusion, prepared not in the leisure of deliberate composition, but in the hurry of extemporaneous dictation, which usually produces a discourse that is more the offspring of chance than the parent of instruction; just as unexpected attacks throw into confusion even the bravest soldiers, and they are compelled to take to flight before they can gird on their armour…

I ask you, therefore, and with all urgency press the request, that you forgive me this humble attempt at a discussion of the matter; and wherein I have transgressed, lay the blame upon yourself who compelled me to write in reply, and who made me out to be as blind as Stesichorus. And do not bring the reproach of teaching the practice of lying upon me who am a follower of Christ, who said, “I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” John 14:6 It is impossible for me, who am a worshipper of the Truth, to bow under the yoke of falsehood. Moreover, refrain from stirring up against me the unlearned crowd who esteem you as their bishop, and regard with the respect due the priestly office the orations which you deliver in the church, but who esteem lightly an old decrepit man like me, courting the retirement of a monastery far from the busy haunts of men; and seek others who may be more fitly instructed or corrected by you. For the sound of your voice can scarcely reach me, who am so far separated from you by sea and land. And if you happen to write me a letter, Italy and Rome are sure to be acquainted with its contents long before it is brought to me, to whom alone it ought to be sent.

That one contains a lengthy discussion of Galatians 2 from Jerome’s perspective.

Jerome to Augustine 405 AD
…in regard to my last letter, I beg you to forgive the modesty which made it impossible for me to refuse you, when you had so long required me to write you in reply. That letter, moreover, was not an answer from me to you, but a confronting of my arguments with yours. And if it was a fault in me to send a reply (I beseech you hear me patiently), the fault of him who insisted upon it was still greater. But let us be done with such quarrelling; let there be sincere brotherliness between us; and henceforth let us exchange letters, not of controversy, but of mutual charity…

If, moreover, the friend who first assaulted me with his sword has been driven back by my pen, I rely upon your good feeling and equity to lay blame on the one who brought, and not on the one who repelled, the accusation. Let us, if you please, exercise ourselves in the field of Scripture without wounding each other.

Augustine responds (405 AD):

“You ask, or rather you give a command with the confiding boldness of charity, that we should amuse ourselves in the field of Scripture without wounding each other. For my part, I am by all means disposed to exercise myself in earnest much rather than in mere amusement on such themes. If, however, you have chosen this word because of its suggesting easy exercise, let me frankly say that I desire something more from one who has, as you have, great talents under the control of a benignant disposition, together with wisdom enlightened by erudition, and whose application to study, hindered by no other distractions, is year after year impelled by enthusiasm and guided by genius: the Holy Spirit not only giving you all these advantages, but expressly charging you to come with help to those who are engaged in great and difficult investigations; not as if, in studying Scripture, they were amusing themselves on a level plain, but as men punting and toiling up a steep ascent. If, however, perchance, you selected the expression “ludamus” [let us amuse ourselves] because of the genial kindliness which befits discussion between loving friends, whether the matter debated be obvious and easy, or intricate and difficult, I beseech you to teach me how I may succeed in securing this; so that when I am dissatisfied with anything which, not through want of careful attention, but perhaps through my slowness of apprehension, has not been demonstrated to me, if I should, in attempting to make good an opposite opinion, express myself with a measure of unguarded frankness, I may not fall under the suspicion of childish conceit and forwardness, as if I sought to bring my own name into renown by assailing illustrious men; and that if, when something harsh has been demanded by the exigencies of argument, I attempt to make it less hard to bear by stating it in mild and courteous phrases, I may not be pronounced guilty of wielding a “honeyed sword.” The only way which I can see for avoiding both these faults, or the suspicion of either of them, is to consent that when I am thus arguing with a friend more learned than myself, I must approve of everything which he says, and may not, even for the sake of more accurate information, hesitate before accepting his decisions.

On such terms we might amuse ourselves without fear of offending each other in the field of Scripture, but I might well wonder if the amusement was not at my expense. For I confess to your Charity that I have learned to yield this respect and honour only to the canonical books of Scripture: of these alone do I most firmly believe that the authors were completely free from error…

I beseech you to look, if you please, for a little into your own heart—I mean, into your own heart as it stands affected towards myself—and recall, or if you have it in writing beside you, read again, your own words in that letter (only too brief) which you sent to me by Cyprian our brother, now my colleague. Read with what sincere brotherly and loving earnestness you have added to a serious complaint of what I had done to you these words: “In this friendship is wounded, and the laws of brotherly union are set at nought. Let not the world see us quarrelling like children, and giving material for angry contention between those who may become our respective supporters or adversaries.” These words I perceive to be spoken by you from the heart, and from a heart kindly seeking to give me good advice. Then you add, what would have been obvious to me even without your stating it: “I write what I have now written, because I desire to cherish towards you pure and Christian love, and not to hide in my heart anything which does not agree with the utterance of my lips.” O pious man, beloved by me, as God who sees my soul is witness, with a true heart I believe your statement…

Wherefore let us rather do our utmost to set before our beloved friends, who most cordially wish us well in our labours, such an example that they may know that it is possible for the most intimate friends to differ so much in opinion, that the views of the one may be contradicted by the other without any diminution of their mutual affection, and without hatred being kindled by that truth which is due to genuine friendship, whether the contradiction be in itself in accordance with truth, or at least, whatever its intrinsic value is, be spoken from a sincere heart by one who is resolved not “to hide in his heart anything which does not agree with the utterance of his lips.” Let therefore our brethren, your friends, of whom you bear testimony that they are vessels of Christ, believe me when I say that it was wholly against my will that my letter came into the hands of many others before it reached your own, and that my heart is filled with no small sorrow for this mistake. How it happened would take long to tell, and this is now, if I am not mistaken, unnecessary; since, if my word is to be taken at all in regard to this, it suffices for me to say that it was not done by me with the sinister intention which is supposed by some, and that it was not by my wish, or arrangement, or consent, or design that this has taken place. If they do not believe this, which I affirm in the sight of God, I can do no more to satisfy them. Far be it, however, from me to believe that they made this suggestion to your Holiness with the malicious desire to kindle enmity between you and me, from which may God in His mercy defend us!

…As to my having written that I had never sent to Rome a book against you, I wrote this because, in the first place, I did not regard the name “book” as applicable to my letter, and therefore was under the impression that you had heard of something else entirely different from it; in the second place, I had not sent the letter in question to Rome, but to you; and in the third place, I did not consider it to be against you, because I knew that I had been prompted by the sincerity of friendship, which should give liberty for the exchange of suggestions and corrections between us. Leaving out of sight for a little while your friends of whom I have spoken, I implore yourself, by the grace whereby we have been redeemed, not to suppose that I have been guilty of artful flattery in anything which I have said in my letters concerning the good gifts which have been by the Lord’s goodness bestowed on you. If, however, I have in anything wronged you, forgive me…

And again, I beseech you to correct boldly whatever you see needful to censure in my writings. For although, so far as the titles of honour which prevail in the Church are concerned, a bishop’s rank is above that of a presbyter, nevertheless in many things Augustine is in inferior to Jerome; albeit correction is not to be refused nor despised, even when it comes from one who in all respects may be an inferior.

In replying, send whatever you think likely to be of use in instructing me and others. And I shall take more care, as the Lord may help me, that any letter which I may write to you shall reach yourself before it falls into the hand of any other, by whom its contents may be published abroad; for I confess that I would not like any letter of yours to me to meet with the fate of which you justly complain as having befallen my letter to you. Let us, however, resolve to maintain between ourselves the liberty as well as the love of friends; so that in the letters which we exchange, neither of us shall be restrained from frankly stating to the other whatever seems to him open to correction, provided always that this be done in the spirit which does not, as inconsistent with brotherly love, displease God. If, however, you do not think that this can be done between us without endangering that brotherly love, let us not do it

That letter contained Augustine’s take on Galatians 2, circumcision, and Jews and Gentiles. Interesting stuff (but this was already far too long).

November 1, 2010

A more balanced take on Halloween

John Dickson offers his more measured take on Halloween over at The Punch.

So, is Halloween today ‘evil’? Sure it is, if it involves the glorification (or, worse, the trivialization) of things satanic, and playing nasty pranks on neighbours who simply forgot to pick up a bag of sweets earlier in the day. Beyond that, a community dress-up involving opening our doors to each other and giving sweets to kids in fancy dress is a lovely idea. It might even build friendships in a society hungry for community.

Just to clarify. I don’t think Halloween is evil. I just think it’s dumb. Stupid. And not becoming of Australian culture. Which I would like to think maintains a higher standard than Coles and Woolworths would lead us to believe.

November 1, 2010

The Grinch Who Stole Halloween

So I was driving to church this Reformation Day (October 31) (yesterday), and I saw a bunch of American tourists. Children. Walking the streets of suburban Brisbane. They were dressed in costumes. Most of them were dressed as vampires – though not the emo/street kid/Twilight/sparkly campire/Edward Cullen variety – the good old caped Dracula variety. So I am thankful for small mercies. It seems our costume shops still think the Count from Sesame St is the model vampire, and not a sulking never-aging teenager with a brooding face. And make-up. Man make-up. And permanently windswept hair.

I’m glad there weren’t too many twihards. That would have made this post even harder to write.

Halloween is a scourge threatening to infect our cities. Australia. It is time to stand up and be counted. This is not an Australian event. This is a commercial opportunity that Coles and Woolworths have seized on with the zeal of a grocer flogging MasterChef products and ingredients. Give Coles and Woolies a sniff and they’ll have a product range and a pallet full of overgrown pumpkins out for sale quicker than Usain Bolt wolfs down a KFC two piece feed after a race (and no, I’m not suggesting that just because he’s a black man from the Caribbean he likes to eat fried chicken – I’ll leave those PC mongers who watch ads and look for hints of racism to come up with that sort of pointless speculation). The man likes KFC. It’s a fact. Here. Look. It’s on the internet.

Look. Here he is eating some with his mum.

I’m not buying into promoting stereotypical racial tropes.

But America. Keep your over-sugared excuse for a holiday out of our country. We don’t want your obesity. We don’t want our children to be fat like yours. We don’t want to have to stock up on bags of sugared goodies or “tricks”¹ in order to assuage our middle-class consumer guilt foisted on us by big commercial supermarkets looking to boost sales of confectionery and ghoulish paraphernalia.

We already have a cultural excuse to dress up in silly costumes. It’s called Book Week. And I’m still scarred by my experience attending one such event in primary school dressed in purple tights, undies on the outside and a pair of toy guns. That’s right. I went to book week as the Phantom.

Halloween is barely even worthy of Grinch status. It’s not a sacred day. I don’t care about its supposedly Catholic or Pagan or Roman origins. The etymology of the word is boring. Current usage determines meaning – and currently it’s a thinly veiled holiday designed to prey on the gullible and to use children as manipulative pawns in a game of excess. So parents who dressed their children, bought lollies, and took groups trick or treating, I quote an Australian media doyen at you: Shame. Shame. Shame.

That is all.

¹ Why we’d want to promote kids to go door-knocking asking for “tricks” in the age of stranger-danger is beyond me.

November 1, 2010

Augustine and Jerome: A robust discussion (part two)

So, Jerome has accused Augustine of writing a book against him without discussing it with him first, Augustine has denied ever writing such a book. And now, Jerome responds to his denial.

Jerome (404 AD) responds:

I am at a loss to express my surprise that the same letter is reported to be in the possession of most of the Christians in Rome, and throughout Italy, and has come to every one but myself, to whom alone it was ostensibly sent. I wonder at this all the more, because the brother Sysinnius aforesaid tells me that he found it among the rest of your published works, not in Africa, not in your possession, but in an island of the Adriatic some five years ago…

True friendship can harbour no suspicion; a friend must speak to his friend as freely as to his second self. Some of my acquaintances, vessels of Christ, of whom there is a very large number in Jerusalem and in the holy places, suggested to me that this had not been done by you in a guileless spirit, but through desire for praise and celebrity, and éclat in the eyes of the people, intending to become famous at my expense; that many might know that you challenged me, and I feared to meet you; that you had written as a man of learning, and I had by silence confessed my ignorance, and had at last found one who knew how to stop my garrulous tongue. I, however, let me say it frankly, refused at first to answer your Excellency, because I did not believe that the letter, or as I may call it (using a proverbial expression), the honeyed sword, was sent from you. Moreover, I was cautious lest I should seem to answer uncourteously a bishop of my own communion, and to censure anything in the letter of one who censured me, especially as I judged some of its statements to be tainted with heresy. Lastly, I was afraid lest you should have reason to remonstrate with me, saying, “What! Had you seen the letter to be mine—had you discovered in the signature attached to it the autograph of a hand well known to you, when you so carelessly wounded the feelings of your friend, and reproached me with that which the malice of another had conceived?”

Wherefore, as I have already written, either send me the identical letter in question subscribed with your own hand, or desist from annoying an old man, who seeks retirement in his monastic cell. If you wish to exercise or display your learning, choose as your antagonists, young, eloquent, and illustrious men, of whom it is said that many are found in Rome, who may be neither unable nor afraid to meet you, and to enter the lists with a bishop in debates concerning the Sacred Scriptures. As for me, a soldier once, but a retired veteran now, it becomes me rather to applaud the victories won by you and others, than with my worn-out body to take part in the conflict; beware lest, if you persist in demanding a reply, I call to mind the history of the way in which Quintus Maximus by his patience defeated Hannibal, who was, in the pride of youth, confident of success…

…As to your calling God to witness that you had not written a book against me, and of course had not sent to Rome what you had never written, adding that, if perchance some things were found in your works in which a different opinion from mine was advanced, no wrong had thereby been done to me, because you had, without any intention of offending me, written only what you believed to be right; I beg you to hear me with patience. You never wrote a book against me: how then has there been brought to me a copy, written by another hand, of a treatise containing a rebuke administered to me by you? How comes Italy to possess a treatise of yours which you did not write? Nay, how can you reasonably ask me to reply to that which you solemnly assure me was never written by you? Nor am I so foolish as to think that I am insulted by you, if in anything your opinion differs from mine. But if, challenging me as it were to single combat, you take exception to my views, and demand a reason for what I have written, and insist upon my correcting what you judge to be an error, and call upon me to recant it in a humble παλινῳδι, and speak of your curing me of blindness; in this I maintain that friendship is wounded, and the laws of brotherly union are set at nought. Let not the world see us quarrelling like children, and giving material for angry contention between those who may become our respective supporters or adversaries.

I write what I have now written, because I desire to cherish towards you pure and Christian love, and not to hide in my heart anything which does not agree with the utterance of my lips. For it does not become me, who have spent my life from youth until now, sharing the arduous labours of pious brethren in an obscure monastery, to presume to write anything against a bishop of my own communion, especially against one whom I had begun to love before I knew him, who also sought my friendship before I sought his, and whom I rejoiced to see rising as a successor to myself in the careful study of the Scriptures. Wherefore either disown that book, if you are not its author, and give over urging me to reply to that which you never wrote; or if the book is yours, admit it frankly; so that if I write anything in self-defence, the responsibility may lie on you who gave, not on me who am forced to accept, the challenge.

I tell you again, without reserve, what I feel: you are challenging an old man, disturbing the peace of one who asks only to be allowed to be silent, and you seem to desire to display your learning. It is not for one of my years to give the impression of enviously disparaging one whom I ought rather to encourage by approbation. And if the ingenuity of perverse men finds something which they may plausibly censure in the writings even of evangelists and prophets, are you amazed if, in your books, especially in your exposition of passages in Scripture which are exceedingly difficult of interpretation, some things be found which are not perfectly correct? This I say, however, not because I can at this time pronounce anything in your works to merit censure. For, in the first place, I have never read them with attention; and in the second place, we have not beside us a supply of copies of what you have written, excepting the books of Soliloquies and Commentaries on some of the Psalms; which, if I were disposed to criticise them, I could prove to be at variance, I shall not say with my own opinion, for I am nobody, but with the interpretations of the older Greek commentators.

Farewell, my very dear friend, my son in years, my father in ecclesiastical dignity; and to this I most particularly request your attention, that henceforth you make sure that I be the first to receive whatever you may write to me.

A long and pointed (some would say barbed) letter. Augustine’s response tomorrow.

October 31, 2010

Drunk in the Spirit meets Martha Stewart

Remember this guy from Wine Barrel Ministries:

Proof that the prosperity doctrine is pretty wacky. And attracts pretty wacky people. Here’s his female at home televangelist equivalent.

Is there a YouTube channel for Christians with tourettes?

October 31, 2010

Too busy to pray? Get some pre-blessed food

Saying grace is so passe. Buy your food pre prayed over and eat with an easy spiritual conscience. Out-sourced prayer is nothing new if the Catholics are your exemplar.

Happy 493rd anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation everybody.

October 31, 2010

Augustine and Jerome: a Robust discussion (part one)

Jerome, another bishop since sainted by the Catholic Church, and Augustine used to write to each other. They lived a long way apart, and their correspondence took place over a number of years. At one point Jerome accuses Augustine of publishing a letter to him to the whole world before it arrived with him. Reading their correspondence is pretty worthwhile (especially if you’re writing an essay for Early Church History).

But this long exchange serves to solidify my opinion that Augustine would totally have blogged.

From Jerome (402 AD):

When my kinsman, our holy son Asterius, subdeacon, was just on the point of beginning his journey, the letter of your Grace arrived, in which you clear yourself of the charge of having sent to Rome a book written against your humble servant. I had not heard that charge; but by our brother Sysinnius, deacon, copies of a letter addressed by some one apparently to me have come hither. In the said letter I am exhorted to sing the παλινωδία, confessing mistake in regard to a paragraph of the apostle’s writing, and to imitate Stesichorus, who, vacillating between disparagement and praises of Helen, recovered, by praising her, the eyesight which he had forfeited by speaking against her. Although the style and the method of argument appeared to be yours, I must frankly confess to your Excellency that I did not think it right to assume without examination the authenticity of a letter of which I had only seen copies, lest perchance, if offended by my reply, you should with justice complain that it was my duty first to have made sure that you were the author, and only after that was ascertained, to address you in reply…

Far be it from me to presume to attack anything which your Grace has written. For it is enough for me to prove my own views without controverting what others hold. But it is well known to one of your wisdom, that every one is satisfied with his own opinion, and that it is puerile self-sufficiency to seek, as young men have of old been wont to do, to gain glory to one’s own name by assailing men who have become renowned. I am not so foolish as to think myself insulted by the fact that you give an explanation different from mine; since you, on the other hand, are not wronged by my views being contrary to those which you maintain. But that is the kind of reproof by which friends may truly benefit each other, when each, not seeing his own bag of faults, observes, as Persius has it, the wallet borne by the other. Let me say further, love one who loves you, and do not because you are young challenge a veteran in the field of Scripture. I have had my time, and have run my course to the utmost of my strength. It is but fair that I should rest, while you in your turn run and accomplish great distances; at the same time (with your leave, and without intending any disrespect), lest it should seem that to quote from the poets is a thing which you alone can do, let me remind you of the encounter between Dares and Entellus, and of the proverb, “The tired ox treads with a firmer step.” With sorrow I have dictated these words. Would that I could receive your embrace, and that by converse we might aid each other in learning!

Augustine (402 AD) responds, denying he wrote a book against Jerome:

I have hesitated whether to give credence or not to a certain report which has reached me; but I felt that I ought not to hesitate as to writing a few lines to you regarding the matter. To be brief, I have heard that some brethren have told your Charity that I have written a book against you and have sent it to Rome. Be assured that this is false: I call God to witness that I have not done this. But if perchance there be some things in some of my writings in which I am found to have been of a different opinion from you, I think you ought to know, or if it cannot be certainly known, at least to believe, that such things have been written not with a view of contradicting you, but only of stating my own views. In saying this, however, let me assure you that not only am I most ready to hear in a brotherly spirit the objections which you may entertain to anything in my writings which has displeased you, but I entreat, nay implore you, to acquaint me with them; and thus I shall be made glad either by the correction of my mistake, or at least by the expression of your goodwill.

It gets a little fiery tomorrow…

October 30, 2010

Electric Snuggie: The next logical step in personal comfort

Your snuggie might keep you warm, but it doesn’t keep you toastie. No. You need. That’s right. Need. An electric snuggie.

Get yours today ($US68). But don’t wear them in the rain. Or anywhere electricity is dangerous.

October 30, 2010