Tag: lists

Top 20 for 2020

End of year lists are a cultural phenomenon that everybody loves, and, in what has been a terrible year on so many fronts, there have been things that have given me joy. And I thought I’d write a list of them. Most of these are recommendations for cultural bits and pieces I’ve loved, but I’m using ‘culture’ in a very diverse sense, a bit like the way Andy Crouch uses it in his book Culture Making, and this list isn’t ranked with any particular chronological value built in. These are just things I’ve liked. They aren’t just things that have been released this year, but things I’ve enjoyed.

1. Movie — Pixar’s Onward

You can read my review of this beautiful movie over at my little review site “Like But Better”. I think this is my favourite Pixar outing to date. It is (re)enchanting.

2. TV Show — Ted Lasso.

I wrote a piece about ‘the new sincerity’ and my desire to stop being so cynical and deconstructive in my approach to life, and along came Ted Lasso. A beautiful example of the new sincerity available on Apple TV. You can read a review of this series at Like But Better too.

3. Magazine — Soul Tread

Soul Tread was a kickstarter project I was thrilled to help launch (I got to host a Zoom launch party). The vision of Rachael Lopez, who is now the editor of a very fine print only magazine. The first edition is beautiful, and something I’ll treasure. Buy a subscription for yourself, or a friend, today.

4. Book — Sam Chan’s How to Talk About Jesus (Without Being That Guy)

Sam’s ‘pop level’ book on how to winsomely present the good news of Jesus in a world that doesn’t think it needs to hear it is a great addition to his earlier textbook on the same gear. It edges out Stephen McAlpine’s Being the Bad Guys: How to Live For Jesus in a World that Says You Shouldn’t on my list of ‘most useful practical books for an Aussie’ this year. I reviewed both Sam’s book and Stephen’s book this year, so check those out to see why you should read them both.

5. TV — Bluey (season 2)

Parents, especially dads, loving Bluey is such a cliche now. But in a year where a significant chunk of time was spent at home trying to cope with children being constantly present, the new season of Bluey was a godsend. Rug Island was my favourite reminder of the value of presence and play with your kids, and Cafe was a beautiful picture of adult friendship (and the way we grow out of making friends easily).

6. TV — The Umbrella Academy (season 2)

Superhero family meets time travel meets exceptional sound track (and fight scene choreography to music), and cinematography. What’s not to love? I also enjoyed Titans.

7. Article/conspiracy theory — The ‘animals are out to get us’ conspiracy theory planted by an old John Jeremiah Sullivan piece The Violence of the Lambs

I discovered this article from 2011 this year, shared it on Facebook, and now I am bombarded with news stories where animals prove the article’s thesis by attacking people in strange ways. What makes this particularly troubling for me, is that it’s not a new obsession. I wrote a college essay on animal attacks in the Bible. John Jeremiah Sullivan also wrote this incredible piece ‘Upon this Rock’ on the Christian rock music scene.

8. Christian Book — Slow Church

We’re in the process of rethinking/recalibrating our church community as we move to independence. I’d already been thinking about how rest and play should form part of the rhythms of our church, and about how to roll out the insights from, say, Scot McKnight’s The King Jesus Gospel (or a reluctance to buy in to a ‘small target’ Gospel), and my reflections on the way the church growth movement and its practices creates consumers rather than disciples, and this book, Slow Church, came along using the metaphor of slow food (as opposed to fast food) to ask questions about how we might realign our collective practices as Christians. It’s, I think, at least a ‘must contemplate’ idea, especially in a post-covid world after so many of us have been forced to slow down.

9. Tech — Zoom

Imagine 2020 without Zoom.

Imagine if you’d bought shares in Zoom at the end of 2019.

It’s not perfect, it may have been bad for us — distorting our interactions, and leaving us fatigued, and the cost of importing technology made for the boardroom into church life is one we’ll still have to reckon with for a while, but Zoom made life, church, friendship, and work possible this year.

10. Community institution — Holland Park Kindy

At the end of 2019 I put my hand up to be president of our kindy’s parent committee. Who’d have thought that a global pandemic was about to significantly disrupt our year, and that a parent committee would have to help navigate the operations of a play based kindergarten as it shifted to a largely online program. We’ve loved this kindy, and it has been such a life-giving part of our family, and so very good for our kids. This, in large part, is thanks to the director, Leanne, and her ethos/pedagogy. We’ll miss it.

It’s such a beautiful picture of the importance of community institutions in the fabric of civic life, and we’re really glad to have been involved the way we have. Plus, Leanne just gave me a bobble head statue of me.

11. Sporting Team — Village FC

I’ve played football (soccer) pretty much since under 7s. This is, by far, my favourite team to play with in that time. Some good recruiting during the Covid lockdown made us almost unbeatable. We dropped the semi final, but because we’d finished top of the ladder we had a second chance, and ended up taking out the title, winning the Grand Final 4-0, so we’re Div 2 Queensland Baptist League champions. Glory. But really just a lot of fun having a kick around every week with some great blokes.

12. Video Game — Assassin’s Creed Odyssey

I can take or leave some of the broader Assassin’s Creed mythos. I’ve sporadically dipped in to this franchise over the years, and while there’s a sameness to ‘parkour + bladed combat,’ the rendering of different historical periods has improved over the year. This one was special — not just because of the way the exploration of the Greek and Persian world at the time of Socrates was well realised, including the way the gods or a sort of spiritual reality was woven into the fabric of the life of the characters in a sort of ‘magical realism’ that was immersive, but because the landscape and landmarks were put together with attention to detail. It was fun running and jumping around ancient Corinth, and Athens, and Epidaurus; all cities I visited on a study tour while at Bible college. On the whole it was an experience a bit like roaming New York City as Spiderman in terms of ‘re-enchanting’ real space.

13. Physical artefacts — Colour blindness correction glasses

New glasses for my ‘presbyopia’ have been fantastic in helping me see clearly, and be less tired, but the clip on colour correction glasses have blown my mind. I don’t wear them as often as I could because they’re overwhelming, and I feel a bit like Bono, but, just knowing that world is out there, and being able to dip into it at will, is like having a super power.

14. Video Game — Jackbox Games (and Quiplash)

Playing online party games during lockdown was one of our big survival strategies. Laughter is good for the soul. Jackbox’s series of party games were great fun, and I kinda find myself missing Quiplash now that (at least temporarily) lockdown in Queensland is in the distant past.

15. Article — Christian Storytelling and the Upside Down Shadowlands

K.B Hoyle’s piece on stories and the culture war at Christ and Pop Culture is one of those absolute must read pieces that I’ll keep sending people back to over and over again. Karin writes some exceptional pieces, including this one on How to Train Your Dragon and Edenic longing, and this piece on Tiger King, and what its popularity says about us (and does to us).

16. Book — Strange Rites by Tara Isabella Burton.

This is a book about ‘secular worship’ in a time where the transcendent nature of reality is flatly denied by most people; the idea that there’s a spiritual or supernatural realm is gone, but we’re still worshippers who replace old religions with new ones. It is the first book I’ve read that made me feel old and out of touch with the youth of today and the pace at which sub cultures are forming around common objects of love or worship, secular options in what Charles Taylor describes as the ‘nova effect’ — I bought this book after reading two incredible articles by the author, Tara Isabella Burton, one on ‘bad traditionalism‘ and one on a ‘post-liberal epistemology‘ that are hard going but worth your time. I’ve also grabbed her novel after reading this great piece about a Christian aesthetic.

17. Podcast — The Eucatastrophe

C.S Lewis said “friendship is born at that moment when one person says to another: “What! You too? I thought I was the only one!” I haven’t met the gents who host The Eucatastrophe, but we’ve corresponded enough online for me to think we’d probably either hate each other or be friends in the real world. So many of these Lewis like moments as I listen to these guys dissect pop culture, or talk political theology, and plenty of stretching my thinking too. They’re a gift.

Special mention also to the hosts of my other favourite podcast, With All Due Respect, but I have met both of them in real life.

18. TV — The Righteous Gemstones

In a year where I’ve been doing lots of thinking about church, and consumerism, and the dangers of turning church into a consumer product or an event (and ‘pivoting’ to seeing it as a ‘media product’), The Righteous Gemstones was a beautifully prophetic critique of so much that is wrong with modern evangelicalism, both in the States, and anywhere where technique and co-opted business/entertainment principles are imported into the church like a Trojan Horse.

The Righteous Gemstones comes with all sorts of content warnings (sex, nudity, language, etc), but despite its very black humour take on the problems with modern evangelicalism, and hypocrisy of the sorts of leaders who play the platform-building game with a whitewashed public persona, while the inside is dead and dirty, there’s a nice redemptive thread that runs through the season, and some genuinely great moments. 

19. Bookshop — The Little Lost Bookshop/The Wandering Bookseller

I’m more and more convinced that Amazon is Babylon. Or the modern equivalent of it. That its rotten all the way down, but big and bright and efficient and offering the promise of everything you could possibly want to consume at the click of a button. This piece from William Cavanaugh was helpful. I’m attempting to ‘consciously decouple’ at least some of my consumerism from Amazon, and one way I’m doing that is more intentionally supporting Aussie book seller Karl Grice and his team at The Little Lost Bookshop and The Wandering Bookseller. I was inspired, in part, by an episode of Sam Wan and Sam Chan’s podcast Espresso and Earl Grey, where Sam Wan talks about his work with the book shop as a more human form of Amazon’s recommendation algorithm. 

Working in Karl’s book shop, or one like it in Queensland, is my Monday morning day dream. 

20. Book — American Gods by Neil Gaiman

I’ve read lots of fiction this year. Mostly some deep dives into viking historical fiction, or Robin Hood stories, or different books dropped in to long running series throughout the year (Bernard Cornwell’s Uthred of Bebbanburg/Last Kingdom, and Lee Child’s Jack Reacher being two notable pop fiction series from this year). But, in terms of sprawling epics, it was American Gods that stuck with me the longest this year. Gaiman is fun; and this deep dive into a variety of mythologies in a world with a fun anthropology (where humans are worshippers, and our worship gives the gods their power) was rewarding. Made more so by this Alan Jacob’s article on fantasy and the buffered self that explores Charles Taylor’s secularisation thesis, and uses Gaiman’s American Gods as a conversation partner.

Bonus list

Outside that 20 things by other people, here’s self-indulgent addition; my favourite things of my own this year.

  1. This piece on Ethiopian Church forests, tying in with the ‘new eden project’ idea I’ve been chewing on since last year.
  2. The Digital Museum of Preacher Gifs on Tumblr.
  3. This review essay of the Amazon Prime show Upload, that was a reworking of a paper I presented at the 2020 ISCAST conference.
  4. The series of posts I wrote around statue toppling, that became this piece published by CPX.
  5. The posts I wrote around Covid’s disruption of church practices, and our sometimes uncritical embrace of media/technology solutions that act like trojan horses, especially how we fall prey to the technological fallacy as Christians.

What did you love in 2020?

December 23, 2020

An open letter to the persons who named Richard Dawkins the top thinker in the world

To the Editor, Prospect Magazine,

Dear sir, it has come to my attention as a citizen of the internet, that your, until recently, esteemed publication has named polemicist Richard Dawkins as number one on your “world thinkers” list for this year.

I understand that this poll is, in essence, well in every sense, a popularity contest, and thus is not really indicative of the intellectual lay of the land… or globe. Even if some 70% of practicing “philosophers” are atheists according to a recent study, Richard Dawkins isn’t even atheism’s top thinker. Alain de Botton, and Lawrence Krauss must surely trump him in the brain stakes. Ricky Gervais tops him in the wit stakes. And Penn Jillette tops him in the making magic appear to happen when he opens his mouth or moves his hands stakes…

Far be it from me, an unpublished writer of an unpopular, by any real measure, blog, to call your judgment into account when it comes to publishing this sort of list after soliciting advice from an expert panel constituted of “the masses” (I understand your survey drew more than “10,000 votes from over 100 countries” in “online polls”) but I just wanted to humbly remind you that this is, after all, the same internet that attempted to send Justin Bieber to North Korea, sent Pit Bull to Alaska, and continues to be enamoured with web polls that present opportunities for Pharyngulation. This feels a lot like one of those events.

You see, dear Prospect, there is a real chance that in proclaiming that the person with a large social media presence is the world’s foremost thinker, in a study that is a result of a poll conducted on the Internet, that you may open yourselves to being considered what the youth of today might call a “numbnuts”… such polls aren’t just open to manipulation, they lend themselves to manipulation, and your analysis of the poll which trumpets the power of social media essentially invites manipulation.

Dawkins, as much more learned people than I – like literary critic Terry Eagleton – would attest, is guilty of a little bit of overreaching when it comes to lambasting his opponents, and underreaching when it comes to, well, thinking… As Eagleton puts it (in the London Review of Books):

“Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don’t believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be…

…Dawkins holds that the existence or non-existence of God is a scientific hypothesis which is open to rational demonstration. Christianity teaches that to claim that there is a God must be reasonable, but that this is not at all the same thing as faith. Believing in God, whatever Dawkins might think, is not like concluding that aliens or the tooth fairy exist. God is not a celestial super-object or divine UFO, about whose existence we must remain agnostic until all the evidence is in. Theologians do not believe that he is either inside or outside the universe, as Dawkins thinks they do. His transcendence and invisibility are part of what he is, which is not the case with the Loch Ness monster. This is not to say that religious people believe in a black hole, because they also consider that God has revealed himself: not, as Dawkins thinks, in the guise of a cosmic manufacturer even smarter than Dawkins himself (the New Testament has next to nothing to say about God as Creator), but for Christians at least, in the form of a reviled and murdered political criminal. The Jews of the so-called Old Testament had faith in God, but this does not mean that after debating the matter at a number of international conferences they decided to endorse the scientific hypothesis that there existed a supreme architect of the universe – even though, as Genesis reveals, they were of this opinion. They had faith in God in the sense that I have faith in you. They may well have been mistaken in their view; but they were not mistaken because their scientific hypothesis was unsound.”

In Dawkin’s defence – he doesn’t have time to worry about sky fairies, or publishing intellectually credible and honest works – he’s lining his pockets with the proceeds of the angry anti-religious screeds published in the guise of popular science or philosophy books – and as you point out in his bio, appeasing his horde of Twitter disciples with cameo turns on the Simpsons. He is a busy gent. He’s too busy to debate serious opponents, and he’s been far too busy to publish original academic work in a peer reviewed science journal since 1980. You know this. Because your own biography of the world’s leading thinker has almost nothing to say about his capacity as a thinker.

When Richard Dawkins, the Oxford evolutionary biologist, coined the term “meme” in The Selfish Gene 37 years ago, he can’t have anticipated its current popularity as a word to describe internet fads. But this is only one of the ways in which he thrives as an intellectual in the internet age. He is also prolific on Twitter, with more than half a million followers—and his success in this poll attests to his popularity online. He uses this platform to attack his old foe, religion, and to promote science and rationalism. Uncompromising as his message may be, he’s not averse to poking fun at himself: in March he made a guest appearance on The Simpsons, lending his voice to a demon version of himself.

How deliciously ironic that in trying to feed an internet culture predicated on the popularity of memes, and the sharability of lists, that you’ve given top billing to this English gentleman and then damned him with faint praise. Is this the biography of a leading intellectual? I’ve bolded the bits that refer to his contributions as a “thinker” rather than as a rabid attack dog operating in an area in which he has only the credibility afforded him by his tribe of minions.

37 years ago he had a good idea. And now he’s a crotchety old man with a megaphone. Here are ten “public intellectuals” with more Twitter followers than Dawkins who you might like to consider for next year’s list. I’ve put stars next to the ones who have been on the Simpsons.

  1. Justin Bieber (approx 39.1 million)*
  2. Lady Gaga (approx 37.3 million)*
  3. Katy Perry (approx 36.5 million)*
  4. Rihanna (approx 29.6 million)
  5. Taylor Swift (approx 27.8 million)
  6. Britney Spears (approx 26.9 million)*
  7. Shakira (approx 20.6 million)
  8. Justin Timberlake (approx 20.2 million)* (in N Sync)
  9. J-Lo (approx 18.2 million)
  10. Kim Kardashian (approx 17.8 million)

I hope this helps. I look forward to reading a more rigorously and well thought out (ie not dumb) approach to identifying “world thinkers” in the future. Unless your link bait strategy was to be very clever and ironic and I’ve missed the joke.

Sincerely,

Nathan

May 16, 2013

An aggregated and definitive top ten list of writing tips

Tips for writing good circulate the Internet like La Niña weather systems, or the flu. There’s a batch around the place now, most of these lists have been collated at The Guardian and at BigHow.com.

Writing Tips Wordle

Image Credit: Wordle of the lists linked above

I’ve had a little look through the advice given, and these, by frequency, are the top ten tips from famous, and usually good, writers. Writers who often contradict each other. Which says something about the quality of such advice. Most of the advice is ridiculously obvious, but there’s nothing wrong with stating the obvious.

I do think there’s something in some of the tips being held in tension – like “just write” and “write to a meticulous plan” – one is more about honing your voice, the other is more about producing something with it. I also think there’s something in most of these for any communicator who uses words.

I tried to capture the essence of most of the advice given when I was collating these. And I’ve ordered this list by frequency, rather than in logical, or chronological, order. The numbers in brackets represent the number of times something came up.

  1. Be Clear. Don’t overwrite.

    Practice clarity of expression and thinking. Short words. The right words. Make adverbs, adjectives, and description functional, not ornamental, but mostly avoid them. Leave out bits people don’t want to read.  Punctuate well. Carry dialogue with said. No frills. Clear sentences. Concrete thought. Edit harshly to achieve this. Make every sentence do something to a character, or for your plot. Write till the sentence/paragraph/page/book is its best, but it’ll never feel good enough. Good ideas often do away with bad. Be prepared to change things. Finish. (46)

  2. Plan and be disciplined.

    Avoid distractions like TV and the Internet. Schedule writing time. Writing is work. Keep going. Try to love it. Know we’re your work is going, go there. Nowhere else. Only include what is necessary. Know your structure and cover it with apt words and phrases. (42)

  3. Edit Hard.

    Write. Pause. Edit. Rewrite. Often. If it sounds like writing, rewrite it. Improve. Pull the trigger on the bad stuff (and cop it when someone else does). Edit at the end, or as you go, but edit well. Be self-critical, trust and care about your reader, don’t waste their time.  (36)

  4. Write from your heart.

    Write about what you know and believe. What you have lived. What you imagine (probe the unknown). Think well. Write powerfully. Write truth. With compassion. Tell a story you care about. Write to engage (yourself first). Then persuade and transform. If it’s fiction – live your story. (33)

  5. Just write.

    Every day.  Anywhere. Write lots. Don’t worry too much about plot or structure. Practice. Start anywhere. Get something down. As it happens. Keep writing. Stop mid sentence/idea and resume the next day knowing where you were going. Finish when you want to continue. (32)

  6. Read widely.

    Read good writing, including poetry. Immerse yourself. Observe structure, figure out how writing works and what works. Borrow good turns of phrase, vocab, etc. From anywhere. But make them yours and avoid cliché and jargon (and most similes and metaphors), bad writing is contagious. (31)

  7. Figure out your style.

    Read your work aloud. Think about rhythm and pace. Care about style. But use it to suit. Ignore rules if need be. Style is about getting you out of the way. Know and be aware of grammar but be prepared to break the rules. Think about your voice, be authentic. (30)

  8. Capture inspiration.

    Ideas and inspiration come from everywhere. Including your feelings. Go to places. Think with your senses. Life is a story. Carry a notebook. Keep a diary. (21)

  9. Know your audience, and yourself.

    Listen to people/readers you respect, but don’t care too much what other people think. The reader is your friend. But don’t write for them or for the “market.” (21)

  10. Characterise well.

    Characters should be necessary, and their necessity obvious. Introduce characters early. Think about psychology and motives. Make characters relatable, and appropriately likeable or unlikeable. Present them consistently so actions and words match character. Make them confront stuff. (17)

November 3, 2012

11 Exciting things (studying at) Queensland Theological College has taught me

There’s something nice about looking back over your old essays and realising that you’ve developed – for me this is true both in terms of my writing, and my thinking.

In a haze of essay induced insomnia the other night I started writing a list of things that College has made me more sure of, or taught me, that I think will be useful for the rest of my life.

1. The gospel is the lordship of Jesus – This means it first functions corporately, and individual salvation, where Jesus deals with sin, is a result. This effects the way I articulate the gospel. It’s not about me. Or you. It’s about him. I was convinced of this in first year, partly from a “word study” – which is a pretty poor basis for making decisions by itself, but partly because it’s a really cohesive summary of both the Old Testament expectations of a coming king, and the New Testament presentation of Jesus. Individualism is a relatively new animal. The word study – the Greek word we translate as gospel was already used in Roman culture as the word for when a herald announced a new king.

2. The Gospel should be proclaimed with wisdom, grace, winsomeness, clarity – and this means understanding the world around you. – What I love about the wisdom literature, Paul, Augustine, and Luther, is that they provide a model for engaging with the best thinking the world has to offer – and using it, or rejecting it – to proclaim Jesus. They also provide a model for using the best methods available to communicate.

3. Biblical Theology as the key for holding the Bible together and understanding anything – spending time reading German scholars who are either deists, or functional atheists, who bring this presupposition to the Biblical text and emphasise its humanity (which is an important aspect) over its divinity (which is the most important aspect) is depressing. The Bible makes the most sense if you allow for some divinely inspired intertextuality between the 66 books that were put together in our one book. Biblical theology makes doctrine possible.

4. The fundamental hermeneutical importance of purpose – I’m increasingly convinced that each book of the Bible is written for a purpose, or two, or three – otherwise, why write them. Often the purpose is explicit, sometimes it’s clearly implicit, other times its a product of its context which is revealed by other books (like reading Psalms against the history of Israel). Any “big idea” of a passage should somehow relate to the big idea of the book – or you run the risk of communicating something the author isn’t.

5. The book as hermeneutical unit. As a corollary to the last point, this means that if each book is a coherent piece of literature, of varying genres, then you’re expected to, by the second reading, know how the book ends, and appreciate how the particular passage you’re looking at helps the author communicate his purpose. This also assumes that the Bible is meant to be dwelt on and read more than once. This means textuality is the first step before intertextuality – so, for example, the best way to understand what function Matthew is having the Pharisees play early in the gospel is by seeing how they develop by the end of the gospel, not how John treats Nicodemus, or even, necessarily, how the Pharisees were actually perceived in history – though these are important.

6. Mission (making the gospel known to people) is worship, and includes being, saying, and doing. I’m not yet ready to argue that mission=worship, but I’m sure it’s a subset. Most passages where Paul talks about evangelism involve the sacrificial use of one’s gifts to serve the body, and reach others. How we do corporate worship is to be intelligible, and should result in visiting unbelievers converting.

7. Systematic theology is a product of biblical theology – creation and new creation are profoundly important. The Bible is the best method for understanding God’s revelation because it points to how he is revealed in Christ. It teaches us about God. It teaches us about us. It does this best when you figure out how different passages relate to us through Jesus and the narrative of salvation history (how God worked out his plan over time). The new creation is the telos for most aspects of systematic theology, creation supplies us with the tools to figure out the nature of things sans sin. Sin obviously messes things up – so much that it gets its own point below. But understanding what we were meant to be, and how we will be, is important.

8. The incredible significance of the fall – bad theology, bad ethics, a weak understanding of Scripture, and too positive an anthropology (understanding of humanity) flow from playing down the effect of sin. Sin breaks everything. So much that God sent Jesus to die to atone for it to not just move us past our initial anthropology when we are united to him, but move us towards our future anthropology. Sin especially breaks our ability to think, and particularly our ability to know God and ourselves. All the problems in contemporary theology, and in public debate, stem from failing to understand how sin has affected humanity.

9. Ethics is a product of Biblical Theology, Systematic Theology, the fall, mission, and eschatology. This is the conclusion of 6, 7, and 8. How we lived is framed by the theological realities, who God is, who Jesus is, who we are, and where we’re going.

10.Integrating ideas is important. I feel like I’ve got a better, more nuanced grasp of things I knew before college, partly because I’ve put time into reading, not just people I agree with, but critically reading people I don’t, and figuring out – with help from brilliant and ministry minded lecturers – how things fit together. I complain a lot about the stress of college, and the workload, but there’s no doubt when I read stuff I wrote a few years ago my thinking has developed – and the beauty of a well thought out college curriculum is that it has developed through integrating multiple streams of thought and data into one or two big ideas. I’m convinced that if you have an anaemic view of one thing, the flow on effect to all other things is more significant than you might think (except Greek). So if your doctrine of Scripture is wonky, everything else is wonky – this is true for most doctrinal points.

11. Practice makes better – especially with writing. I’ve produced, after culling things back to their word limit, 30,000+ words a semester of essay, that’s 150,000 words so far. My essays now are much easier to read, and their arguments much more cohesive, than in first year, and I’m producing them in significantly less time. Having something that forces you to produce work, and assesses it, is great for honing a craft.

I certainly slept better after thinking about why I was spending so much time on an essay.

*Disclaimer – these thoughts are my own, and not necessarily representative of anything the QTC faculty teaches or believes if they don’t want to teach or believe said things…

September 5, 2012

How to be a con man, and 5 other great lists

Lists of Note is from the guy who brings you the ever brilliant Letters of Note.

Contrary to popular belief, numbered lists have been around for longer than the blogosphere, and indeed for longer than the internet.

These 10 commandments for Con Men are good. A sample:

  • Be a patient listener (it is this, not fast talking, that gets a con-man his coups).
  • Never look bored.
  • Wait for the other person to reveal any political opinions, then agree with them.
  • Let the other person reveal religious views, then have the same ones.

I also enjoyed:

  1. Fumblerules of Grammar – “Late-1979, New York Times columnist William Safire compiled a list of “Fumblerules of Grammar” — rules of writing, all of which are humorously self-contradictory”
  2. Henry Miller’s 11 Commandments of Writing – “In the early-1930s, as he wrote what would become his first published novel — the hugely influential Tropic of Cancer — Henry Miller wrote a list of 11 commandments, to be followed by himself.”
  3. The rules for the Anti-Flirt Club – “In the early-1920s in Washington, D. C., a lady named Alice Reighly founded the Anti-Flirt Club — an organisation “composed of young women and girls who have been embarrassed by men in automobiles and on street corners,” and which aimed to protect such women from future embarrassment.”
  4. Rules for Wives – “In 1923, the Legal Aid Society of New York City published some advice to wives in the area, in the form of the following list of rules.” 
  5. How to Write – advertising legend David Ogilvy wrote a letter to his staff. Part encouragement. Part motivational lecture. Part kick up the bum.

The last one strikes me as either being straight out of Mad Men, or a preaching class. So I’ll reproduce it in full.

1. Read the Roman-Raphaelson book on writing*. Read it three times.

2. Write the way you talk. Naturally.

3. Use short words, short sentences and short paragraphs.

4. Never use jargon words like reconceptualize, demassification, attitudinally, judgmentally. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

5. Never write more than two pages on any subject.

6. Check your quotations.

7. Never send a letter or a memo on the day you write it. Read it aloud the next morning—and then edit it.

8. If it is something important, get a colleague to improve it.

9. Before you send your letter or your memo, make sure it is crystal clear what you want the recipient to do.

10. If you want ACTION, don’t write. Go and tell the guy what you want.

March 5, 2012

Off beat travel advice for travel off the beaten track…

I like this. Makes me want to go somewhere fun and exotic.

3. Steal soap from your hotel and give it to kids in developing countries as a present. Studies have shown that distributing soap to kids in poor countries saves lives. Travelers are always thinking up things to give to kids that ask for handouts (pencils, erasers, candies) but nothing beats the gift of clean hands. And don’t just collect 1 or 2 from your hotel bathroom. Hit the hallways while the cleaning staff are having a smoke and grab a couple handfuls from the service carts. When you’re saving lives, Go Big.

Cool list. Got any other novel tips for novel places?

December 6, 2011

Ten thoughts on Righteousness

Lest I wander too far down the path of heresy with my “everything is sin, so stop worrying about it an get on with the job” vibe, I thought I should counter my ten points from last night with ten points on the antithesis to sin – righteousness. This is almost entirely from Romans 6, which I think gives us a great platform from which we can deal with the problem of sin tainting every one of our actions (even the righteous ones). Verse one and two…

What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? By no means! We died to sin; how can we live in it any longer?

Some may think, and yet nobody has yet suggested, that Romans 6:11-14 are a natural counter to my position from last night…

In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer the parts of your body to sin, as instruments of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God, as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer the parts of your body to him as instruments of righteousness. For sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.

This is mostly why I’m writing this post. I don’t think we can consider sin without considering the opposite… I think this particular passage, the rest of Romans and the rest of scripture describes this tension. Galatians 5 is another good example of the “battle” going on within.

But I say, walk by the Spirit, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For the desires of the flesh are against the Spirit, and the desires of the Spirit are against the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you would. But if you are led by the Spirit you are not under the law.

  1. We are not to “live in sin” any longer – we are now, thanks to the Holy Spirit, locked in a battle between our two natures. Our tainted by sin nature and our desire to serve our new master via the Spirit.
  2. Our new nature will lead to righteous actions. Romans 6 again…

    Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone to obey him as slaves, you are slaves to the one whom you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness?

  3. Righteousness comes through faith, but is not limited to faith. Application in sermons, or bad advice, that conflates righteous living with faithful living is a bit unhelpful. There is more to “doing good deeds” than reading your bible. Nobody on the street ever thought “gee, God loves me” because you read your Bible for an extra hour last night.
  4. God is holy. He hates sin. Even if it’s inevitable he wants us not to do it. Both Jesus and Paul use imperative language when describing how we are to live with Jesus as Lord (both with regards to what we are to do, and what we are not to do). This to me suggests that we actually do have to do this stuff. Our good works are never salvific (because, to push my barrow a little further, they are always going to be tainted by our sin). But without good works there is no evidence that we are saved, and good works are what we are to do after salvation (think Ephesians 2, James 2).
  5. There are many things that we are called to do as Christians. Being the “missional” guy I am – I think all of the things we’re called to do are subsets of the need to be making disciples. This does not mean that we should not do social justice type stuff for the sake of proclamation of the gospel. We are not called to be street preachers who have no idea about the people they are speaking to – but to be relational (the analogies for ministry throughout the Bible support this – ie shepherds, family, etc). Proclamation without deeds is dead. While we’re sailing dangerously close to “preach the Bible when necessary use words” territory
  6. We tend to be more “armour of God” than “fruits of the Spirit” in our emphasis on righteousness. We need to be both. It’s no good being equipped with faith and truth if we’re not also demonstrating love, patience and humility.
  7. While I don’t keep a record of my rights and my wrongs (and I don’t think of it like a scorecard) – there would appear to be some Biblical case to be made for God providing extra reward (not just salvation) for righteous living. I think most of these passages are also tied to faithful ministry. Because I believe that all “righteousness” is a subset of ministry (because I believe that all Christians are in “ministry” as part of the one body).
  8. The right things that I do are only done as a result of the work of the Spirit, and are only possible because of the sovereignty of God (he prepares them in advance) – they are never a reason for boasting nor are they anything but filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6) without the Spirit imbuing them with righteousness (or removing the taint of sin – I don’t think this happens in the action itself, but in how God judges the action).
  9. The right, good, or obedient actions of non-Christians are also produced as a result of God’s grace in the form of common grace. These actions, like our own, have no intrinsic value or merit – the merit is extrinsic only. It comes through God working them out for himself.
  10. I am much more worried about my inability to do righteous things than I am by my inability not to do unrighteous things. I expect that as a result of the Spirit I will do good things, and if I don’t I am disappointed and have doubts. I expect as a result of the flesh to do bad things, and if I do I am not disappointed, I just get on with trying to do right. I think I try to apply 1 Corinthians 10:31 (which I think functions the same both in and out of context) to both my sin and my righteousness. I sin so that God may be glorified in showing mercy, and I do the good deeds prepared for me so that God may be glorified in his goodness.

April 6, 2010

Ten thoughts on the subject of sin

Simone wrote about a post church conversation last night (in real life) that was a continuation of a couple of posts from Simone and Kutz (part one), (part two). I’ve spent today trying to articulate my position on sin. It’s not like Simone’s (looking to the new creation to resolve sinful desires) nor is it like Kutz’s (looking to the original created order to salvage the good thing that sin twists). I don’t tend to analyse my sin. I find that can be pretty crippling.

Here are some of my thoughts about sin in list form…

  1. I think sin, by definition, is our expression of autonomy. It’s our rejection of God’s rule. It’s disobedience. It’s not meeting God’s standards. I think the last one is the key – if we do something that doesn’t meet God’s perfect and holy standards – as he as described them to us – then we have “sinned”.
  2. I think there are different values to different sins – I know some have interpreted passages to suggest that all sins are equal. I think all sins are equally deserving of condemnation – but I don’t think all sins are equal in badness. There are sins with external victims – these sins require an extra level of repentance because you should, I think, repent to the victim as well as to God, and there are sins that are essentially internal matters for you and God to deal with. Let me give an example, when you commit some form of idolatry, putting something else in God’s position – you are wronging God, but no necessarily other people. But when you murder someone you not only commit an act of disobedience to God, you not only commit an act that effects the victim, you commit an act that has multiple effects for the victims family – you cause them to sin as well – they will no doubt feel malice, they will probably curse God for letting you take their father, husband, or son (or mother, wife, or daughter). You rob these people of a significant other. Some actions carry with them many sins, others do not. All sin is worthy of death and judgment when God, the holy, holy, holy God sits in judgment and judges by his holy, holy, holy standards. The accumulated sin of a lifetime is a pretty massive barrier between us and God.
  3. I think the language of conflict between our new nature and our sinful nature, our flesh and the spirit, our slavery to sin and slavery to righteousness, are all Biblical analogies for the same internal struggle that occurs, and will continue to occur, until the new creation. We’ll never – no matter how mature we become – rid ourselves fully of the taint of sin. Which I think even spreads to our good, righteous and obedient actions.
  4. I think trying to determine whether an action is “sinful” or “Godly” in and of itself is almost a complete waste of time. A conversation sprang up about whether being drunk is a sin the other day. I think it is. I think eating fatty food is probably a sin. I think drinking instant coffee is a sin. I pretty much think that everything we do, stemming from our sinful nature, is a sin. We can eat fatty food for God’s glory, but I tend to think if we’re not eating it specifically for his glory, but rather for our own purposes, then that’s an expression of our autonomy. I’d pretty much say that I think everything we do is tainted by sin. Even the good stuff… even the God stuff. I think this is part of the battle between our sinful natures and our new spirit enhanced natures.
  5. I think it is more helpful to think of sin in terms of nature than actions. Sinful actions are those things we do that are born out of our sinful nature. The Bible certainly spells out that certain actions are sins. Both sins of comission and omission.
  6. Almost all “Godly” actions can be sinful. I’m thinking of the way Jesus talks to the rich young ruler – even keeping the rules isn’t enough. We’re sinful by nature, and we never meet God’s holy standards. We can not possibly do so. We’re wired to sin. I think sinful actions are actions born out of our sinful nature – and I think Godly actions are actions born out of the spirit working within us (and those “good” actions performed by non-Christians are as a result of God’s spirit working throughout humanity in the guise of common grace).
  7. I think even when we are obedient to God we are obedient in an incomplete way – I think this is the picture we see with Israel and its inability to ever meet God’s standards completely. It’s important that we, as God’s people, seek to be obedient. Even if we know we’ll do it generally, but not specifically.
  8. When confronted with a decision our job is to try to discern the obedient, or most obedient option. Some decisions will in fact be decisions between two equally tainted options. An extreme example would be a choice between lying to save the life of one’s child (or an innocent) or giving them up and becoming complicit to whatever happens as a result of your taking the moral high ground. Life is full of impossible decisions, because everything is tainted by sin.
  9. Sin sucks. I hate its effect on the world, on relationships between people, and on myself. I don’t wallow in my sin because I realise it has been paid for in full. I realise it’s inevitable. And I realise we’ve got a job to do. So I’d rather just get on with that job. Without distractions. Without paralysis by analysis. My job is to try to be obedient to God wherever possible – and I think the point at which this obedience is most important is the Great Commission. I think any Godly living is Godly living for the purpose of winning the lost, more than for the sake of redeeming myself (either bringing myself closer to the pre-fall or new creation versions of me).
  10. Because I see sin as an inevitable product of our sinful nature I’m not keeping score as though God is Santa Claus. I’m not wracked with guilt. My debt has been paid. While I am pursuing holy living, maturity and ongoing “sanctification” (though I think technically sanctification is part of the package with justification that occurs at salvation) I don’t do this by dwelling so much on the times I miss the mark, I do this by getting on with the job. I love Luther’s “sin boldly” quote from a letter to a guy named Melanchthon (included below). This translation is slightly different to the one I’d originally heard.

If you are a preacher of mercy, do not preach an imaginary but the true mercy. If the mercy is true, you must therefore bear the true, not an imaginary sin. God does not save those who are only imaginary sinners. Be a sinner, and let your sins be strong, but let your trust in Christ be stronger, and rejoice in Christ who is the victor over sin, death, and the world. We will commit sins while we are here, for this life is not a place where justice resides. We, however, says Peter (2. Peter 3:13) are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth where justice will reign. It suffices that through God’s glory we have recognized the Lamb who takes away the sin of the world. No sin can separate us from Him, even if we were to kill or commit adultery thousands of times each day. Do you think such an exalted Lamb paid merely a small price with a meager sacrifice for our sins? Pray hard for you are quite a sinner.

April 5, 2010

Five things I’m looking forward to about Brisbane

I’ve only got four days of work left. And we’ve only got 10 days left in Townsville. Which is sad – and worthy of much reflection.

But there are some things I’m really looking forward to about life in Brisbane (even though we’ll be living in Student poverty). You should assume that most of these include the addendum “with my hot wife“…

  1. Studying the Bible (and other stuff) with other people at QTC.

  2. Working with Andrew, Simone, Pete and Mel at Clayfield Presbyterian.

  3. Living in Grovely close to my three sisters*, parents and grandma, and next door to the Lyndons.

  4. Playing (outdoor) football with (rather than against) Pete.

  5. Exploring the Brisbane coffee scene and trying out my new roaster (which I still haven’t used because we’ve got so much coffee left over from Stable on the Strand.

* For those who don’t know yet – little sister number 1 just got a job as a dentist in Brisbane (today) having been in Toowoomba. I don’t think she reads my blog – but congrats anyway little sister number 1. It’ll be fun having the whole family together.

January 18, 2010

15 steps to better procrastination

People often ask me how I have so much time to blog, or can justify the time I spend doing so.

The truth is, I’m a procrastinator. Right now I have a newsletter to send out and a booking form to build. But there is no deadline pressure. Not for another hour or so. So I need to fill the time with meaninglessness in order to create that pressure. Sure, I have a to do list filled with other meaningless tasks and I could create the deadline pressure by creating a faux deadline. But then I’d finish earlier and have nothing to do.

Steve Kryger has produced a list of 15 tips to help you not to procrastinate, (H/T DaveMiers.com). I’m going to be counterproductive. Here are 15 tips to guide your efforts in procrastination.

How to procrastinate while feeling productive

  1. Read some articles about how to do what you’re doing better – Consider this professional development and research. At the same time. Also click through to any other links you find that seem interesting.
  2. Tidy your desk – This one is also on Steve’s list – but I use it to avoid doing the jobs I am avoiding doing. And who knows what you might discover going through your physical inbox and your files. Maybe there’ll be another task that you can procrastinate on.
  3. Write a really long list of things to do to achieve your goal, and then your next four or five goals – Lists just feel so productive. And they make your tasks much more concrete. This helps you to avoid doing them.
  4. Learn how to write your goals in other languages – Constant learning is the best way to avoid constant doing.
  5. Visit Facebook, Twitter and MySpace – Ask your friends how to achieve your goals better. Their advice could save you valuable minutes in the long term.
  6. Participate in community – While you’re on Facebook check out your friend’s photos and comment on their walls. It is all about community.
  7. Have a quick game of Tetris – It really gets the creative juices flowing.
  8. Blog – Write a post about “how to” solve your issue quoting your friends and the articles you read.
  9. Comment elsewhere – Encourage other people to write more stuff that helps you. This is like a self fulfilling prophecy of procrastination. The more stuff there is to read through in order to find what you’re after the less time you need to spend doing stuff. Increase the noise to signal ratio. That way when you find something relevant it’s a real triumph.
  10. Engage with differing ideas – Find something online you disagree with and get in an argument.
  11. Get amongst real people – Walk around the office and play a prank on somebody.
  12. Spend 80% of your time developing efficiencies – This is my own personal 80/20 rule. Everybody loves an 80/20 rule. It justifies spending less time doing stuff.  The more time you spend thinking about how you do work the less time you actually have to spend doing it.
  13. Make sure the job still needs doing – Procrastination is a filter to avoid doing unnecessary tasks. Not doing unnecessary tasks is much more efficient than doing them and finding out they weren’t needed. If nobody has noticed that you haven’t done the thing you were asked to do, it probably didn’t need doing.
  14. Make sure the deadline still stands – Perhaps the job wasn’t as important as it first seemed. If that’s the case put it down the list and start procrastinating about something else.
  15. Delegate – Ask someone else (preferably a known procrastinator) to produce an integral part of your work. Then their lack of progress is a perfect excuse for your lack of progress.

Enjoy. This should provide eight or nine spare hours in the work day.

Bonus tip:  Subscribe to hundreds of blogs (including mine (subscription link)) in Google Reader. And make sure you have no unread posts before you start the day.

January 14, 2010

My five favourite posts about branding and PR from 2009

January 9, 2010

January Listmania

Everybody loves lists. Especially at the end of the year and the end of the decade. I haven’t written any yet. I’m putting together my hottest 100 Townsville experiences in time for Australia Day – because everybody knows that’s the day for hottest 100s.

In the meantime today will be a bunch of lists. And because I’m lazy it will be lists of stuff I’ve featured before. That you may have missed.

January 6, 2010

A list of lists

I was going to put together a list of good end of year lists as my contribution to the blogosphere – but these guys have already done that. If you want to waste your time reading through reflections of the year that has been then check it out.

It’s pretty comprehensive.

December 28, 2009

5 things about being a Christmas baby

Unlike Jesus, I was actually born on the 25th of December. People often ask me what it’s like having a birthday on Christmas Day. I don’t really know any different – but this XKCD comic prompted a post of reflections of sharing my birthday celebrations with the king of the world.

  1. When I was still really excited by birthdays I felt pretty ripped off about not having a normal birthday. We used to celebrate my birthday a month early (but never celebrated Christmas early). As I grew older the date I celebrated my birthday moved closer and closer to the actual date. In the last couple of years I’ve managed to snag the morning or the afternoon of the 25th.
  2. The combo present never has the same ticket value as two individual presents for each occasion.
  3. Asking someone who celebrates a birthday on Christmas Day if they like their birthday is like asking them if the like their name – except that you can’t change your birthday by deed poll. Like I mentioned up there – I know no different.
  4. Christmas babies are spared the awkwardness of unreciprocated well wishing – when someone says “happy birthday” to me I can always respond “Merry Christmas”.
  5. By the age of five I had heard all the good jokes about sharing a birthday with Jesus. Unless you’ve got something truly original to contribute to the discussion when talking to a Christmas baby over the age of five it’s probably not worth it. Any laughs will be to spare your feelings.

December 26, 2009

How I write complaint letters

You may, if you’re a regular reader, be wondering what became of my complaints to Cadbury and Jetstar.

Well.

Cadbury sent me a voucher for $5 to spend on Turkish Delight and Jetstar sent me $100 to spend on my next flight.

This complaint letter thing is fun and rewarding.

Here are my six tips for writing a complaint letter that gets read…

  1. Establish a connection with the company – tell them that you’re familiar with the product you’re complaining about. Being a regular customer who is sold on the brand will give you credibility with the reader – and make them want to help you out.
  2. Find the right person to contact – for the Cadbury one I phoned Cadbury rather than using an anonymous web form, for the Jetstar one I emailed it directly to the Customer Service manager as well as posting it. The more senior the person you address the letter to the better.
  3. Give good details – tell the reader exactly what your experience was from start to finish. Set the scene. Help them to pinpoint the nature of your complaint.
  4. Use the right tone – be polite – don’t complain about rudeness by being rude. Try using humour – it’ll make your letter different to the hundreds of other letters they receive. Be memorable.
  5. Have a call to action – give the company some recourse – let them know what you expect in return for your letter. Do you want a reply detailing what went wrong and what they’ll do to fix it? Do you want a refund? You won’t get exactly what you want without asking for it.
  6. Be contactable – give good details for follow up – you won’t get free stuff if the company doesn’t know where to send things.

Those are the things I do – how ’bout you? What are your tips for writing complaint letters that bear fruit.

December 21, 2009