Thought Spurred by Website of Unknowing

From Why Myticism Matters.

"Likewise, the shift from modernity to postmodernity has resulted in many Christians questioning the propositional, authoritarian nature of faith grounded in obedience to the church (Catholic) or the Bible (Protestant), and instead are looking for a more experiential expression of the faith, where their “obedience” is situated internally, toward a personal experience of God, Christ and/or the Holy Spirit."

I repudiate the propositional, authoritarian style of faith but I have always attended churches that affirm it. I have always thought that my fellow church goers would change. But they haven't. It is clear that a vast gulf exists between us. They keep getting more entrenched and holding on tighter. Why? It must have to do with what it is we desire to experience?

the Lost Symbol: Believe or Trust

Am half-way through Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol. Would have read it through last night but needed the sleep. Here's a thought from one of the characters to the hero, Langdon. He relates that one of Langdon's greatest strengths is his skepticism and at the same time it is one of his greatest weaknesses. And then he says:

"I know you well enough to know you're not a man I can ask to believe . . . only to trust."

There is a difference isn't there. I wish it would be the practice of those speaking and writing about our religion if they would emphasise trust more as opposed to belief.

Back from Bonn and Darmstadt

Was in Bonn Germany last week for a meeting related to Test Cell Instrumentation for turbine engines. On Friday gave a talk at the Technicshe Universitat Darmstadt at the Center for Smart Interfaces on "Experiences with Phosphor Thermometry". The hilites of that day for me included having lunch with two professors (my hosts) hearing a description of their work, and touring their lab. On the previous Sunday, I stumbled upon Beethoven's birthplace. It is now a museum. I was alone and so could stay as long as I wanted. Was there three and a half hours. Had a wonderful time. What would music be like now if there had never been a Beethoven?

The Liturgical Turn and the YMCA

Great article over at The Church and Postmodern Culture titled The Liturgical Turn: Church and Public of Worship. The article author's thoughts were spurred by the fact that his church now meets in a YMCA gymnasium. That fact attracted me to the article because our group has likewise been meeting in a school gym for 3 and 1/2 years now.

And also, there was a pithy comment at the beginning:

It’s easy to become overly connected to place. It seems better to stay in Egypt instead of making the journey to the Promise Land because there’s a desert in between. It’s easier because it’s comfortable, familiar, and controlled.

Then there was also this:

Reflecting on the fact that we now worship in a community gymnasium is pretty exciting to me because it’s a great way to be missional and to let certain aspects of the nature of worship flourish which have a tendency to be forgotten.


I would like to say more but I've got to get to work. Yes, its only 5:30 am but so many things on the list to do.

After Foundationalism

Am reading and attempting to understand The Postfoundationalist Task of Theology: Wolfhart Pannenberg and the New Theological Rationality by LeRon Shults. One of the things he is trying to do is describe the options between two extremes. On the one hand, there is Foundationalism. It received its initiation by Descartes, Locke, and the ensuing Enlightenment and it viewed that certainty could be achieved by their reasoning from obvious foundational truths (I'm simplifying of course). On the other hand, there is the extreme postmodernism of complete relativism. There is no context-independent truth. Am wrestling with the second chapter where LeRon is describing various "middle ground" approaches of various theologian/philosophers who acknowledge that we have moved beyond the Age of Reason but don't want to go the full distance to the other extreme. The term "postmodernism" often refers to this extreme end and "postfoundationalism" may perhaps capture the idea that there are a range of options being investigated and that perhaps "truth is still in", as he quotes Dutch Theologian Andy Sanders as wanting to believe.

Impact of "A New Kind of Christian" on Me

Jimmy Adcox, minister of the Southwest Church of Christ in Jonesboro, AR asked me what impacted me most about Brian McLaren's A New Kind of Christian. I responded on Facebook with this message and am reproducing it here.

You asked what impacted me most. It is difficult for me to explain. It pointed me to a new view of things where I could hope to reconcile Christianity and Science. This had been a dilemma for me all my adult life and an obstacle to faith and confidence. It set me on a new path to explore and showed me the importance of Story. It shed light on earlier things I'd read by CofC scholars about the role of the Enlightenment in forming Alex Campbell and our particular heritage. As I write this I want to say it gave me better reasons for things, and it did. But, though reasoning is important and plays a critical role, it has its limitations. In addition to that, it also gave me a coherent story of how we arrived at this point and where we are now and a basis for Hope that I can believe in.

Evangelical and Evolutionist 2

Here I go again on one of my favorite things to gripe about.

This is what some thoughtful evangelicals, in my opinion, have to say about the dogged attachment of evangelicals, generally, to anti-evolutionism.

Niki made her Choice by Internet Monk

Evangelicals and Science by Tim Stafford

and a quote from the last one:

A large number of evangelical Christians in America (not Europe) are stuck in an intellectual trap. They live and breathe in a world built on science, but they are fundamentally suspicious of science and think of it as an alien force. Surely this is a problem for evangelicals. They are excluding themselves from our era’s prime intellectual force. It is also a problem for scientists because they are excluded from the resources of a robust, biblical faith, and left to an arid materialism.

I say yes, materialism is dry and arid, as Ken Wilber says, a flatland. I never wanted to believe in materialism. But, when I was younger, I was propelled in that direction by the honest and sincere teaching of Christian teachers, really fine people all of them, who made Christianity and Evolution an either/or choice and by a faith heritage rooted in the rationalism of Locke and Bacon with no role for emotion and spirit and mystery.

Hyper-Realism?

The religious heart or frame of mind is not "realist" because it is not satisfied with the reality that is all around it. Nor is it antirealist, because it is not trying to substitute fabrications for reality; rather, it is what I would call "hyper-realist," in search of the real beyond the real, the hyper, the uber or au-dela, the beyond, in search of the event that stirs within things that will exceed our present horizons.

From What Would Jesus Deconstruct Chapter 2 Spiritual Journeys , Postmodern Paths

Ran across this while eating breakfast at a local truckstop yesterday morning and it is in keeping with the topic of the previous post on "realism". I'm not sure I know what John Caputo means here by the hyper-real. But I think we want to move beyond our everyday notions and prejudices of what we think that the "real" is.

Realism - Attachment to the Past

Realism has for most of my life held a positive meaning for me. But that has changed over the last decade. I came across this through Thomas Barnett's blog which points to an article he wrote for World Politics Review. The insight is offered as a result of the interplay between his two main activities, working in the national security realm and investigating new business opportunities in emerging/frontier economies

I find the perspective it offers invaluable, because it reveals how often what we call "realism" tends to be hopelessly trapped in centuries past.

Jesus and Deconstruction

"deconstruction is a theory of truth, in which truth spells trouble. As does Jesus. That is what they have in common."

"so I am employing the word in a rigorous sense here, not proposing to stretch it just to produce a shock or pander to a biblical audience. I am proposing that what happens in deconstruction has an inner sympathy with the very "kingdom of God" that Jesus calls for ..."

from What Would Jesus Deconstruct? The Good News of Post-modernism for the Church by John D. Caputo.

Reading things like this help me leave and refresh, however briefly, from the many mental and physical chores that take up my time.

Update

Been so busy lately. Was in DC over Labor Day. Working 10-11 hour days. Physically exhausting since I work in so many places and do a lot of walking and carrying: laptop, briefcase, pulse generators, oscilloscopes, etc. Re-reading What Would Jesus Deconstruct by John Caputo and The Left Hand of God by Adof Holl. The latter has to be the most entertaining book ever written about the Holy Spirit. Wry humor and an exhaustive knowledge of Christian history shine forth.

The Word, Idol or Icon?

It has been a while since I stopped by the Website of Unknowing. Always good and interesting things there. Carl shows respect for everyone across the theological spectrum. I particularly liked these thoughts which educated me on the difference between an idol and an icon and that the Word should be received as the latter: The Word As Icon. The concept of an icon is not really part of my Southern Bible Belt spiritual roots so it is not part of my religious instincts. From reading this maybe it should be. He says:

"an icon functions as a luminous “window onto heaven,” directing our gaze and our love through and beyond itself to that which can never be contained by anything of human design."

Kierkegaard and Christianity - Belief or a Means to Change Existence?

Have not been able to do any sustained reading these past few weeks. A couple of nights ago I picked up John Caputo's book on How to Read Kierkegaard. Forty years ago when they talked about him in school, I had absolutely no interest and no regard for him as he was emotional, subjective, and mushy. But I've changed. I'm fighting to get out of the robot rationalism of my younger days of , say, before age 50.

Caputo in one place has this pithy thing to say. He says that K, and these are Caputo's words

"had written that Christianity is not a doctrine supported by evidence but a command to transform existence that can only be witnessed."

Back from New Hampshire

Back from a conference held in New Hampshire. We were nestled in a valley surrounded by a national park. The terrain reminded my of how it is at the TN/NC border on I-40. An enthusiastic crowd of researchers from all over the world who use lasers to study combustion processes were there. It was noted that we get, at present, 85% of our energy from combustion. The food was great and plentiful and the meal times turned into impromptu seminars. I took "What Would Jesus Decontruct" with me for my plane reading.

Memories of Woodstock

NADA. Nothing. Nothing except coming home one evening and from the news first learning about it while in progress. I was 18. There was a slight disappointment knowing something cool was happening far (~1000 miles) away that I could not experience. Not sure if the fall term of my sophomore year had started yet. If not, then I had probably been working at my job that day on the campus grounds of mowing, weeding, hauling furniture, etc. But it was an exciting time to be alive. Wonderful music in the air. A new school term starting up. Maybe I'd meet some interesting girls. Any time you are 18, I believe, you should think it is an exciting time to be alive. That goes for 58 too.

Utterly Humbled by Mystery

This is from a beautiful "This I Believe" segment on NPR. The author/narrator is Richard Rohr, the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, N.M.

"When I was young, I couldn't tolerate such ambiguity. My education had trained me to have a lust for answers and explanations. Now, at age 63, it's all quite different. I no longer believe this is a quid pro quo universe -- I've counseled too many prisoners, worked with too many failed marriages, faced my own dilemmas too many times and been loved gratuitously after too many failures."

The rest is HERE.

The Scientism of our So-Called Common Sense

And here's something else from the book of the last several posts that I like.

"Awakening to the original seed of one's soul and hearing it speak may not be easy. How do we recognize its voice; what signals does it give?"

From my vantage point in life I now understand better the signals I have missed. Signals that were there but which I ignored or looked for in the wrong places. Continuing. . .

"Before we can address these questions, we need to notice our own deafness, the obstructions that make us hard of hearing: the reductionism, the literalism, the scientism of our so-called common sense." (emphasis mine).

He goes on to say that there are "meanings that don't slide in fast, free, and easy, but are encoded particularly in the painful pathologized events that perhaps are the only ways the gods can wake us up."

I wrestle with this because this literalism is my nature. And such nature has been supported and amplified by my choice of occupation as an R&D engineer/scientist. Also, it is how I've been nurtured in what has to be one of the most rationalist of Protestant groups. Will continue to struggle with this because that's how one learns.

What An Oak Tree Can Teach Us

Ah! I like this. From Hillman's The Soul's Code: In Search of Character and Calling

The essence of the oak is all there at once. Theologically, the acorn is like one of Augustine's nationes seminales or seminal reasons. As far back as the Stoics, Gnostics, and Platonists such as Philo, some ancient thought held that the world was filled with spermatikoi logoi - word seeds or germinal ideas. These are present in the world from its beginning as the primordial a priori that gives form to each thing. And these spermatic words make it possible for each thing to tell of its own nature - to ears that can hear. The idea that nature speaks, especially through the voice of a talking oak, remained a vivid fantasy through the ages and was still a subject of paintings a hundred years ago.

Trees fascinate me. When we were looking for a house 19 years ago, mature trees on the land were a requirement for me. Their meaning reaches deep inside me. Hillman's book is an extended discourse on one metaphor or teaching from the mighty oak.

The Acorn Theory

From the first chapter of The Soul's Code by James Hillman:

"We dull our lives by the way we conceive them. We have stopped imagining them with any sort of romance, any fictional flair. So, this book also picks up the romantic theme, daring to envision biography in terms of very large ideas such as beauty, mystery, and myth."

And Hillman promotes the acorn theory of human biography.

"In a nutshell, then, this book is about calling, about fate, about character, about innate image. Together they make up the "acorn theory," which holds that each person bears a uniqueness that asks to be lived and that is already present before it can be lived."

The 100 Most Useful Websites

The 100 Most Useful Websites are HERE.

Oak Ridge Supercomputers Provide First Simulation of Abrupt Climate Change

Here's a great article about accomplishments regarding climate simulation with a Supercomputer where I work (though I am not involved in this particular activity).

OAK RIDGE, Tenn., July 16, 2009 — At the Department of Energy's Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), the world's fastest supercomputer for unclassified research is simulating abrupt climate change and shedding light on an enigmatic period of natural global warming in Earth's relatively recent history. The work, led by scientists at the University of Wisconsin and the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), is featured in the July 17 issue of the journal Science and provides valuable new data about the causes and effects of global climate change....

rest of the story here.

When You First Heard Landon Saunders

Preacher Mike posted a request for bloggers to tell about the first time they heard Landon Saunders. I did so.

I first heard Landon sometime in the early 60’s. My earliest memory of him would date to, I think, 1962 when he preached at McDougal, AR before moving on to Corning. My dad held a meeting at McDougal and I recall sitting in the backseat with Dad driving and Landon talking about the personality of someone they were on their way to visit for the purpose of giving them encouragement. There was an intensity and depth in his concern for the person and that grabbed my attention. It taught this 11 year old a lesson in psychology. Experiences and external causes are important to how a person conducts their life and how that interacts with their innate personality. Another memory that surfaces is an area tent meeting somewhere in the Marmaduke or Paragould area about 1967 +/- 1. When I next heard him in my Memphis State days, ‘72-74, he had evolved and progressed to a different style and one I found compelling. Unfortunately the last time was probably when he came here to Knoxville where I’ve spent the last 30 years and spoke at the Laurel Avenue CofC in about 1979 or 80.

On John Calvin's 500th Birthday

Back from vacation and helping my folks move into a new house. One with one storey and no steps, a good thing for them.

John Calvin's 500th birthday was last week and this has given rise to many newspaper and blog articles. Here's excerpts from this Christian Century Article by Paula Cooey. She is intimate with his writings. I found this interesting.

"In the Institutes he wrote of spectacles: the spectacles of Scripture that allow our dim eyes to see, he wrote of creation as a theater for God’s glory....

He knew that was what we were here for—to rejoice in divine beauty and holiness, to glorify it, to wallow in it, to sing with the rest of creation in praise of the Creator....

At the same time, if Calvin’s God the Creator was awesome, his God the Redeemer, in the divine roles of both perpetrator and victim of cruelty, horrified me. Even in 1970, I found Book II of the Institutes on God the Redeemer deeply disturbing. I loathed Calvin’s doctrine of the Atonement, in which Jesus’ death served as perfect sacrifice for my sin. In many respects a legal transaction, Jesus’ righteousness stood in the place of my corruption so that God would not hold that sin, so thoroughly permeating my will, against me. Thus, if elect, was I justified. I wanted no part of the deal. A father-God who would not simply allow, but would will such a thing to happen was and is a child abuser of the worst kind in my eyes....

The legacy Calvin left is ambiguous at best. The dominant strain that runs through consists of an accentuated Augustinian proclivity to the transform world, a stewardship characterized by leaving the place better than one found it. “Better” is subject to interpretation and debate, of course. Many of his followers, somewhat more scholastic and ever more into policing human life and less into rejoicing, were and are a tough and all-too-often nasty lot, to say the least. In fact, Calvin, with others (that fiery redhead John Knox who smashed the stained glass windows of St. Andrew’s Cathedral in Edinburgh, to name the most notable among them) gave birth to the various denominations that make up the Reformed Protestant Church: Presbyterians, the United Church of Christ, Disciples of Christ, and others all share the name Calvinist. In this country, these Calvinists range in their political and social world-transforming behaviors from avid theocrats, still capable of spewing a vituperative anti-Catholic polemic, to equally avid radical supporters of gay and lesbian marriage...."

And note this by one of the commenters, Rita.

"Because of Calvin's idea of redemption, his wonderful views of creation, become, in effect, abstract and dislocated from the present into the future. He taught suspicion of the senses as tainted by sin and was among the most iconoclastic of all Protestant reformers. My college religion professor summed it up in a joke. "Whenever Calvin walked to work from his home to St. Peter Cathedral along Lake Geneva surrounded by white-capped alps and sparkling huge and blue in the early sunlight, he held his Bible up to the side of his face and mumbled, 'Don't look! Don't look!"

His iconoclasm has encouraged both left and right wing Calvinists to distrust the present (ie the world of the present available through our senses) and to live in a vaguely dissociated "spiritual" relationship to this life and this place. This dissociated focus on futurity and progress enables the kind of cruelty and benevolent paternalism we see in right and left wing American Protestant culture today."

I perceive many aspects of my personal spiritual heritage in the above.

Evolution is like a Muscadine Vine & Jab at Dennett's Skyhook Metaphor

Been reading back through A Third Window: Natural Life Beyond Darwin and Newton by Robert Ulanowicz. It is a difficult book. I recognize a kernel of value in many of the things he says but I'm not knowledgeable of things in depth enough to connect the dots in many of his arguments. But here I present a useful idea.

One of today's most strident reductionists is Daniel Dennett who says that evolution is a series of machine cranes stacked up on one another and that no skyhook (God) is involved. Here's what Robert says

Overall, however, I eschew his metaphor as misleading. Like Elsasser and Bateson, I believe that many, if not most , mechanical analogies are procrustean, minimalist distortions of the dynamics of living systems. Paraphrasing the analogy of Oliver Penrose (2005), living dynamics only look rosy (mechanical) because most insist on looking at them through rosy (Newtonian) glasses.

Robert describes an observation from his muscadine grapevines that grow in his garden. The vines grow up from the ground to two levels of horizontal support wires and spread sideways. Eventually, at some point, they send down roots at other locations. Next, the original trunk dies.

It struck me like lightning that here was a more appropriate metaphor for the dynamics of evolution! The muscadine plant represents an evolving system across several hierarchical levels. No skyhooks are involved because the system always remains in contact with a foundation of bottom-up causalities that remain necessary to the narrative. ... later, higher structures create new connections that eventually replace and/or displace their earlier counterparts. Such displacement is a key element in solving the enigma of how emergent structures and dynamics can influence matters at lower levels that had played a role in their own appearance.

To read more you can google-book it over to circa page 100 for further details.

The above provides me with an analogy/metaphor that can begin to explain how human thoughts can control physical body actions. We are provided with a way out of bottom up causality. And, Laplace's conjecture can be tossed aside. This is one aspect of an emergent explanation for our existence. Emergence, for me, is a useful concept for reconciling science and religion.

The Biologos Foundation

Francis Collins and friends have a presence on the web known as the Biologos Foundation.

"We believe that faith and science both lead to truth about God and creation."

and

The BioLogos Foundation promotes the search for truth in both the natural and spiritual realms seeking harmony between these different perspectives.


They discuss what role God has in evolution HERE. Some prominent Christian thinkers are referred to at the web site including Alistair McGrath, John Barrow, Timothy Keller (who has a hit on his hands with The Reason for God), and Ron Numbers.

LifeSpirals

I've been a member of the Stone-Campbell listserve for about 10 years and Harold K. Straughn is likewise a member. His early life involved time at Abilene Christian University and the Herald of Truth. Following many life adventures he is now a Disciples of Christ minister. His book LifeSpirals arrived yesterday. I think I'm gonna like it. Here's what's at Amazon:

Product Description
LifeSpirals assimilates revolutionary discoveries in brain research, learning techniques, and the new field of "wisdom psychology." More than just a self help book, LifeSpirals guides readers through the seven major stages of adult learning that mark the achievements of history's greatest leaders. All the reader needs to maximize his/her own achievement is a greater awareness of how to make use of what he/she knows, which lies buried among your early memories. LifeSpirals shows the reader how to access these lost memories and reconstitute them into a new vision for his/her life that can make the boldest dreams so far seem like tame compromises.

Review of Wilber's The Marriage of Sense and Soul

In October of 1999 I attended a conference at Purdue University on pressure sensitive paints (I spoke on a related topic: temperature sensitive paint) and one evening spent some time in a Barnes and Noble bookstore looking for something interesting. I came across Ken Wilber's The Marriage of Sense and Soul. It had a definite effect on me and initiated my journey toward an appreciation of the postmodern. Here is a review of the book. I recommend the review but, interestingly, what I took away from the book that was important to me was not discussed in the review. It was where I learned about the Great Chain of Being and the principle of emergence. Here for a Wikipedia explanation. It might not seem to follow but it does. The book prepared me for A New Kind of Christian by Brian McLaren.

Visuwords

Visuwords TM is an online graphical dictionary and thesaurus tool that I discovered through Stumble! It appears to be a great way to improve vocabulary and word useage.

The Case for Working With Your Hands

Marvelous article, The Case for Working With Your Hands, by a young scholar who is now a motorcycle mechanic.

For me, at least, there is more real thinking going on in the bike shop than there was in the think tank.

I make my living as an engineer and can identify with some of this.

Some Thoughts on the Lost Art of Reading Aloud

From an NYT editorial.

Reading aloud recaptures the physicality of words. To read with your lungs and diaphragm, with your tongue and lips, is very different than reading with your eyes alone. The language becomes a part of the body, which is why there is always a curious tenderness, almost an erotic quality, in those 18th- and 19th-century literary scenes where a book is being read aloud in mixed company. The words are not mere words. They are the breath and mind, perhaps even the soul, of the person who is reading.

The only reading aloud I experience is the scripture reading at church and in Bible classes. It seems we are afraid to show depth of feeling when we do that. Its as if we are trying to set some kind of speed reading record.

A Scientist's Postive Use of 'Postmodern Constructivism'

Robert Ulanowicz's view of postmodernism from page 10 of his introduction to A Third Window: Natural Life Beyond Newton and Darwin

He promises to write in the spirit of "postmodern constructivism". About which he says:

However, a relative few among the postmodernists are picking up elements from among the rubble left by deconstructionists and using them to build new ways of visualizing reality. Although narrative no longer requires that one abide by all the Enlightenment restrictions, neither should one forsake rationality in the process. Viewed in a poisitive light, the postmodern critique frees the investigator to search among classical, Enlightenment, and contemporary thought for concepts that can be woven into a coherent rational whole."

This book promises to be pretty good.

Origins of Political Correctness

From page 145 How Postmodernism Serves (My) Faith by Crystal Downing.



"Maintaining binaries - sometimes by inverting them - is so easy that many of Derrida's followers strayed from deconstruction by stumbling into "political correctness". Welcoming his message that those traditionally marginalized by dominant culture - gays, blacks, women - should be given voice, these followers missed Derrida's point and merely inverted the heiarchy, repudiating straight white males. As postmodern theologian Mark C. Taylor stated in his obituary for Derrida, " Betraying Mr. Derrida's insights by creating a culture of political correctness, his self-styled supporters fueled the culture wars that have been raging for more than two decades and continue to frame political debate." In contrast, Derrida argued that "it is necessary to recognize the unavoidable limitations and inherent contradictions in the ideas and norms that guide our actions, and do so in a way that keeps them open to constant questioning and continual revision. There can be no ethical action without critical reflection."

Yes, I think perhaps we should be open to and practice constant questioning and make continual revision and correction of ourselves.

Two New Books

How Postmodernism Servies My Faith







Third Window

Neat Insight into Blogging/Twittering & Real Life

So many good blogs and so little time. I need to get to work but here's a neat snippet from Ambivablog

VI. I still don't think the Internet is a bad drug. On the contrary. The blogosphere and the Twitterverse are places of amazing ferment: a hive mind to which each brings a dab of nectar; a teeming sourdough starter for the next culture. Their genius -- and their jonesiness -- is being at once a place to chatter and brag and play for laughs, as comes so naturally to us tribal primates, and a place of contagion and mutation, an agora where ideas cross-fertilize as fast as viruses swap genes.

It's just that, like anything, it isn't everything. And when it starts to become everything, it's time to turn off, tune out, and drop in. Real life is the mother lode. The more you go there, the more you'll have to bring back.

Ezekiel in a Nutshell

Ezekiel left Jerusalem in 597 BC, taken captive by Babylon.

In about 593 BC he receives his vision of the "chariot" and call to his vocation.

Half way through the book, the major event is the destruction of Jerusalem in about 586 BC.

He puts down his last vision about 571 BC

Major Message: Bad news for folks in Jerusalem

A contrast with Jeremiah: J is emotional and expresses his emotions. He feels. E is not like that. He does not use the words lovingkindness, graciousness, forgiveness, compassion.

Where Jeremiah is disorganized chronologically and a hodgepodge of different genres and sections, Ezekiel's book is the most organized of the prophets.

Jeremiah and the other prophets before him were recorded by others.

Ezekiel actually wrote all or most of the book himself. It is mostly prose. You can sit down and read it and make sense. That is very difficult to do with much of the other prophetic writing. There, one is required to do background study and consultation with commentaries and scholars in order to make any sense of it. The poetic language and oracles take a lot of effort. Of course, it is good to do all of that with Ezekiel too.

He uses "I" a lot. But still he is more detached emotionally. As an example, God does not allow him to express the normal emotions when his wife dies. No mourning or showing sorrow. It is meant to convey how the same will of necessity happen in Jerusalem.

The book of Ezekiel is the best dated of all the prophets. He is careful to give dates quite often.

In the book, there are four major visions, 12 symbolic acts, and 5 parables according to one source I read somewhere.

One theme "Then you shall know I am the Lord" occurs some 65 times.

One important teaching that emerges from E is the responsibility of the individual. Ezekiel 18:20 - the soul that sins shall die. The father is held accountable for the sins of the son and vice versa.

Outline

Chapters 1 - 24 The impending doom to befall Jerusalem.

Chapters 25-32 Oracles against other nations

Chapters 33-39 Oracles of consolation for Israel

Chapters 40-48 The Vision of the New Temple

Ezekiel is distinctive for his visionary experiences. And he gives vivid details.

The vision of the chariot eventually served to ignite Merkabah Mysticism among some Jewish thinkers. The rabbi's reserved the study of this part of Ezekiel only to the mature and properly apprenticed.

Something I think needs to be explored: the apostle Paul's relationship to Jewish mysticism.

The most macabre writing of all the Bible: The Vision of the Valley of Dry Bones.

An obvious effect on the New Testament: clear references in Revelation eg. where Gog and Magog are discussed (see Ezek. 38)

The last section gives a vision of a New Temple and one can almost make a blueprint from it. Then, in rhapsody, he describes a river flowing from the Temple to the east to the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea will begin to host life, fish will thrive. And fruit trees in the desert will grow and produce fruit monthly. Oh what a day that will be. I think this must connect with the gospel of John 4 and John 7 where we have reference to "streams of living water". Rather than physical it is spiritual. Ezekiel must have meant that as well.

Science and the Coming of Christ

OK, I'm gonna leave the postmodern theme of the last couple of posts. Remembering, after all, a lot of it has rightly been called "fashionable nonsense".

I've been fascinated by the book Christology and Science by LeRon Shults and came across this interesting quote that explains what Teilhard de Chardin was up to:

As in our case study on the incarnation and evolutionary biology, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin stands out as one of the early courageous voices to engage these cosmological shifts; many other proposals at the intersection of these sciences have engaged his work to some extent. As a theologian Teilhard wanted to think through the implications of the Pauline idea that Christ will incorporate all things in himself and bring them into relation to the Father so that God will be "all in all" (ICor 15; cf. Eph 1:10 Col. 1:20), and to express this in a way that illuminates our scientific understanding of an evolving universe." page 140.

Some of the relevant Bible passages are below.

Ephesians 1:10

And he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times will have reached their fulfillment—to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ. (NIV)


Colossians 1:19-20

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. (NIV)


We discussed de Chardin in a class back at Harding many years ago and I remember wondering at the time where he possibly got his idea. I can perceive where this is coming from a little better now.

Modern versus Postmodern Science

I'm seeing this kind of thing more often now. This is lifted from The Postmodern Adventure (see previous post). This author makes a distinction between "modern" science and the type of science that is now developing. According to this type of thinking (and I think they are on to something) the mechanistic science exemplified by Isaac Newton which co-developed with the industrial revolution is giving way to something else, a science characterized as follows:

Many scientists and cosmologists began forsaking modern models of the universe for new paradigms that reject atomistic logic for relational understanding and replace static laws with history and evolution. The new cosmological theories also abandon necessity for contingency, go beyond the logic of simplicity and determinism for new theories of complexity and self-organization, and renounce realism in favor of a hermeneutic approach to scientific understanding. p137

...what is remarkable is the general fact that science, which has done so much to alienate human beings from nature, is now in a position to help reconnect us with the cosmos as it advances ecological and life-sensitive values and challenges modern theories of mechanism, determinism, reductionism, and dualism. p. 139



Could it be that finally, science is now making room for the Spirit?

Gravity's Rainbow and a Postmodern St. Paul

In the year 1976, for reasons I do not remember, I bought and read "Gravity's Rainbow". I'd just completed my course work and qualifying exam for my degree and just getting started on my research. The book was interminably long, disjointed, with a cast of characters I couldn't keep up with and plots within plots, and short vignettes thrown in just for fun, and allusions to a great many things. Thomas Pynchon, the author, covered a lot of ground. But not only was he verbally gifted, he had some education in engineering physics, which it so happens was the degree I was pursuing. Science and technology references and inside jokes were a part of the narrative and it was fun to follow that aspect of the book.

I knew that my comphrehension of the book was greatly lacking. Occasionally through the years, (that was 1/3 of a century ago!), I'd think about getting back to it and re-reading.

When I ordered The Postmodern Adventure: Science, Technology and Cultural Studies at the end of the Third Millenium I was hoping to learn more about how the postmodern turn to things affects science and technology, after all, that is how I make my living and I'm trying to keep up. I discovered upon receiving the book that the authors devote quite a bit of space to a chapter called Thomas Pynchon and the Advent of Postmodernity. And Gravity's Rainbow is presented as something which "vividly illuminates a phase between the modern and the postmodern. ... In addition, Pynchon's texts exhibit the postmodern turn in the arts, science, and theory, as he cultivates a mode of postmodern writing, epistemology, and vision." p.23


The authors describe how Pynchon presents a character ,Mr. Pointsman, who represents the old "modern" way of thinking, those who condense the world down to a Pavlovian model of stimulus response and a character, Roger Mexico, who is counter to that (postmodern was not a term of use then.) Below is lifted from The Postmodern Adventure (blue) which also contains quotes from Gravity's Rainbow (GR)(in red). The pronoun "His" refers to Pointsman.

"His faith ultimately lay in a pure physiological basis for the life of the psyche. No effect without cause, and a clear train of linkages. Mexico answers that "there's a feeling about that cause-and-effect may have been taken as far as it will go. That for science to carry on at all, it must look for a less narrow, a less ... sterile set of assumptions. The next great breakthrough may come when we have the courage to junk cause-and-effect entirely, and strike off at some other angle" That "other angle" leads to a postmodern science that suspends the modern paradigm for less determinist models."... Thus, GR signals that randomness is a fundamental part of existence, and that underlying connections may not be perceivable or even accessible to the diligent investigator." p 41

Cause and Effect. That is what technology is based on isn't it? My technical training, in my Harding University physics classes and my U. of VA engineering classes directed us to model the world using deterministic equations. Can there be any effect if there is no cause? Can there be free will? What IS free will? This has always vexed me. Still don't have the answer to that. But, Mexico is right, randomness is not an accident, randomness is a fundamental part of reality. It is necessary to the evolution of the universe since the Big Bang and necessary to the evolution of life on this planet. It is necessary for our continuing lives. Randomness, interconnectedness, non-deterministic thinking. These are qualities of more importance to our everyday, postmodern story we are now living. And I'm glad. Breaking out of the cause/effect prison gives meaning/validation to the spiritual side of life.

And now, I know what your are thinking. This is clearly what the apostle Paul was writing about in what we know as the 2nd epistle to the Corinthians where we read:

He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter (binary 0/1, yes/no, unyielding sets of rules, instrumental rationalism, determinate physical law) kills, but the Spirit gives life. II Cor 3:6 NIV

GraceConversations

A blog discussion between different perspectives within the Church of Christ is GraceConversations. It is

"A conversation regarding the disagreements that separate the conservative and progressive branches of the churches of Christ"

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If you participate in a Christian forum or maintain a blog, please post a notice iniviting readers to read and comment. For this sort of dialogue to truly work well, it needs the broadest circulation possible.

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update april 02 2009

Trekked to Raleigh this past weekend for round 3 of NCAA. Saw my niece play her last game for Baylor. Parents followed us home. Dad wasn't feeling well and the next day was diagnosed with pneumonia. Have been very busy at work. Will be a few more days before posting.

Excited about Emergence

I am excited about emergence. Check this clip from Philip Clayton over at Mike's Progression of Faith.