Stevian Saga

Friday, July 03, 2009 The millinerd Rick Steves love/hate saga continues. His Borghese audio tour describes Bernini's statue of Apollo hunting Daphne. Bernini, as you well know, depicts the very moment of Apollo's attainment, when Daphne turns into a tree. Rick explains that the moral of the story, for the Roman cardinals who commissioned such objects, is that worldy pleasures don't satisfy. Then Rick's selective Lutheranism chimes in:

The place to contemplate that, is the Vatican.

Sorry Rick, but your protests would mean a lot more if they came from someone who doesn't encourage middle-aged Americans to their forego their Yankee workohol and pursue the European good life to the point of toking up in Amsterdam. Sheesh.

But Rick always wins me back, and he did so this time with a quip from his Athens/Peloponnese guidebook:

After eight years on the road, an exhausted Alexander died at the age of 32, but by then he had created the largest empire ever. (What have you accomplished lately?)

Maybe it was the Mythos, but I found that rather funny. And speaking of Alexander, one answer to Rick's question came in Meteora (where I am now), in a fresco at Kalambaka's Church of the Dormition. Therein, St. Sisoi stands by the skeletized remains of Alexander the Great, accompanied by an inscription:

As the great Hermit was looking at the unburied corpse of King Alexander, who once shined full of glory, he shuddered and, fully persuaded of the purposelessness of this present life and glory, behold he cries, O immortal, who can avoid you?

Well played sixteenth century inland Cretan fresco, well played.
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the personified crown

Friday, June 19, 2009 I suppose there have been well-intentioned Marxist critics of Christianity who have pointed to Biblical passages promising "crowns in heaven" only to identify a perversely sublimated materialism. I suppose those same critics must have overlooked I Thessalonians 2:19-20: "For what is our hope or joy or crown of boasting before our Lord Jesus at his coming? Is it not you? Yes, you are our glory and joy!"

Speaking of Thessalonians, greetings from that wonderful city, my favorite in Greece, maybe even my favorite in all of Europe. On the agenda today (before our seminar begins) is to see the Thessaloniki Biennale, which has taken as its theme text Terry Eagleton's After Theory (excerpts from which I provided you back in 2005). When it comes to contemporary art, the Venice Biennale is so 20th century.
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Audio Vitality

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 Driving/flying season is upon us; it's time to update your iTunes subscriptions.

For those who couldn't make it, Union University has put up its many talks from the Making Men Moral conference. Therein, Russell Moore gives a sensitive address wherein he handles Protestant/Catholic convergences with diplomatic aplomb. Moore relates Richard John Neuhaus' belief that the aim of Evangelicals and Catholics Together is "full communion," which Moore understands to mean Protestant conversions to Catholicism. Rather than finding this offensive, Moore (a Baptist) finds it refreshing. Moore then has the pluck to suggest that the goal of Catholic/Protestant dialog, from his perspective, is to - gulp - lead Catholics to the baptistery. A bracing ecumenical throwdown. (Thanks to Matt Anderson for the tip off.)

Speaking of Neuhaus, one of the few whom he would refer to as "a great preacher" was Tim Keller. Several of his sermons are available for free here. When Keller is on, he's on, and let's hope the CT cover article doesn't change things.

Then there's a host of wonderful talks from the Veritas Forum (where Neuhaus talks can also be found). It's worth it to take the time to listen to William Lane Craig's recent apologetical tour de force, which is not your grandfather's theodicy. While I haven't seen Bill Maher's Religulous, I'm certain that the film responsibly engages each of the points brought up by Craig.
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Academic Babylon

Thursday, June 11, 2009 Regarding a new openness to faith in the academy, Princeton Sociologist Robert Wuthnow suggests that religious folk think twice before they uncork the celebratory champagne:

Faith and religion in the academy may have more opportunities to overcome marginalization now than a generation ago. But this change can also be viewed as a kind of devil's bargain, for the process in no way suggests that faith and religion will again become center stage in American higher education. Instead they become articles of personal biography, aspects of some community or group's cultural history, rather than anything resembling truth.

Wuthnow identifies three strategies by which religiously-minded people navigate this situation. The first is accommodation, a path often unconsciously followed. The second strategy, resistance, argues that the University serves the liberal nation-state which is incompatible with orthodox faith; hence pagan learning must be undercut.

Wuthnow calls the third religious strategy "intentional reframing," and it's much more difficult to describe than the first two, lying as it does between them. This approach

recognizes that the pursuit of knowledge is always flawed by self-interest, academic politics, and other human limitation. It therefore adopts an intentional stance of questioning or even skepticism in the consumption of and pursuit of higher learning....

At the same time, however, this perspective

trusts the academy, up to a point, to be an institution that has proven over the years to be effective in generating and transmitting knowledge... But just as faith in the democratic system of government always requires citizens to reserve granting absolute faith to their representatives, so faith in the academy is similarly tempered.

Wuthnow's third way for religious folk in academia is very similar to the counsel of Richard John Neuhaus (and the prophet Jeremiah) for religious folk in democracies, as articulated in Chapter One of American Babylon.

Labels: academia

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The Other Demythologizer

Wednesday, June 10, 2009 You are probably familiar with Rudolf Bultmann's over-quoted electricity quip:

It is impossible to use the electric light and the wireless and to avail ourselves of modern medical and surgical discoveries, and at the same time to believe in the New Testament world of spirits and miracles.

For variety's sake, I suggest we express that same worn out sentiment with a similar quote from a different twentieth-century figure: "Put a small telescope in a village, and you destroy a world of superstitions." Said the same individual, "The dogma of Christianity gets worn away before the advances of science." That person: Hitler.

Below the belt perhaps, but it may be fair to play the Hitler card when the card is supported by direct quotes from the man himself. For more on Hitler's scientifically enlightened hatred of Christianity, especially Catholicism, see Mohler or page 547 of The Third Reich at War.
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in praise of obligation

Friday, June 05, 2009 To continue this multi-post localism and loyalty theme, here's a delightful excerpt from Henry James' novel, Portrait of a Lady (courtesy of Kenneth Minogue). Therein, Isabel Archer explains her reasons for returning to a less than exhilarating marriage:

He was not the best of husbands, but that didn't alter the case. Certain obligations were involved in the very fact of marriage and were quite independent of the quantity of enjoyment extracted from it.

My wife of course has no idea how Isabel feels, as I have long been the object of her perpetual enthrallment. But the quote may be of assistance to others.
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Old Guard

Sunday, May 31, 2009 To critique my own generation - not idolize another - I'll post this photograph from Princeton reunions this weekend along with a pertinent quotation from Kevin DeYoung's book, Just Do Something.

"Compared with my affluent, lazy, trivial, tinkering generation, my grandpa would be a remarkable man, except that so many from his generation seem to have been so remarkable. He had his faults, to be sure, but Grandpa Van, like most of the WWII crowd, certainly did something rather than nothing. He worked hard, took chances, showed constant initiative, and, by his own account, lived a pretty fulfilled life - all without searching desperately for fulfillment. He prayed, but didn't hyper-spiritualize his every move. He had several different jobs, but never in hopes of finding the next best thing.

More importantly, growing up in the Depression, he expected little from life, so when he got little he wasn't surprised, and when he got a lot, he chalked it up to God's doing, not his. I sense from talking to my grandpa that he labored hard at everything except trying to discern some mysterious, hidden will of direction from God. Not that he doesn't believe in God's providence. Far from it. But the providence he believed helped him take chances instead of taking breaks."

Much of DeYoung's effectiveness comes from his going to an older generation for wisdom, not his own.
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Prodigal Son Sociology

Friday, May 29, 2009 I've been having some interesting conversations with friends at my career stage - what I like to call the academic in heat - about life decisions. We discussed the conflict between the Creative Class and Bowling Alone - between Richard Florida and Robert Putnam. Which is best?

In his address entitled Christianity and the Creative Age, Tim Keller seems to have answered the question for me, at least enough for me to stop worrying about it enough to get on with the important part: Living it.

For Keller, Florida's Creative Class (bohemians) and Putnam's close knit communities (bourgeois) can both become idolatrous. An urban artiste's (perhaps unintentional) idolization of the value of creativity, mobility and fluidity can lead to rootless vacuity, a condition that also threatens cities who put all their eggs in the creative class basket. Conversely, the hometown lifer's (perhaps unintentional) idolization of social capital and tribal loyalties can lead to cultural sterility or xenophobic traditionalism. Keller encapsulates these poles with the parable of the Prodigal Son. The son who left is Florida's Creative Class; the Son who stayed is Putnam's rooted community - but they both missed the point.

David Brooks' frightening BoBos take the worst of both possibilities: the amorality of the bohemian and the materialism of the bourgeois. Keller instead proposes that the Christian should take the best of both: the openness and creativity of Florida, grounded in the social capital and accountability that churches can provide. This could lead to thick, long-term communities even within a hip urban setting, or vibrant street life and creativity even in a small hometown.

Keller's is an interesting proposition. Perhaps a bit of an oversimplification, but I don't think anyone would dispute that it's worth $2.50 (the price of the mp3). It might especially be of interest to the kind of grassroots conservatism going on at the Front Porch Republic.
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I was a teenage evangelical

Thursday, May 28, 2009 And, truth be told, still am an evangelical. It's a marvelous inheritance, but one of the side-effects - immediately recognizable to fellow evangelicals and perhaps opaque to outsiders - is the dreaded question of "God's will for my life." I have spent the last too many years of my life untying myself from the knots that result from an unhealthy focus on that issue. DeYoung's book is a lucid guide that shows me how it was that I untied the knots I've succeeded in untying, and shows me how to untie the knots that remain.

This anti-self-help book is also a perfect generational compendium to Stuff White People Like. "Some of this is a generational thing," writes DeYoung.

"After all, my peers and I were among the first ones to experience grade inflation, where we got A's for excavating our feelings and 'doing our best' at calculus. We were among the first to be programmed for self-esteem, as we learned that having a pulse made us wonderfully special.... It's no wonder we expect people to affirm us for everything, criticize us for nothing, and pay us for anything we want to do. We figure we should be able to find a great job right out of college in a great location that provides the same standard of living our parents have right now, and involves us in the world's troubles in a way that would make Bono proud. We want it all - all we need is for God to who show us the way...

I wonder if the abundance of opportunities to explore today is doing less to help make well-rounded disciples of Christ and more to help Christians avoid long-term responsibility and have less long-term impact.... Our eagerness to know God's will is probably less indicative of a heart desperately wanting to obey God and more about our heads spinning with all the choices to be made."

Just Do Something is a consistently well-written, desperately needed tonic for evangelical ills. Or, to put that in the Christianese that DeYoung so effectively criticizes: God told me that he wants you to read this book, and if you don't you'll miss his perfect plan and be miserable forever.
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Consummate, don't flirt

Wednesday, May 27, 2009 Not terribly surprising to see this kind of stuff coming from the contemporary art world. As I have plans to be in Manchester this summer during the "hermit's" tower enclosure, Ansuman Biswas should know that I will be the one shouting (charitably) from the street: "Why don't you just get it over with and convert to Christianity!"

In the words of Alain Besançon, artists today have "turned the amnesia regarding Christian disciplines and dogma to their advantage."

Labels: contemporary art

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like a shot

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 The First Things site has that pleasant new car smell. I've got a post on academia over at First Thoughts, further confirmation of the point coming from Stanley Fish in the January 2005 Chronicle of Higher Ed:

When Jacques Derrida died, I was called by a reporter who wanted to know what would succeed high theory and the triumvirate of race, gender and class as the center of intellectual energy in the academy. I answered like a shot: religion... Announce a course with "religion" in the title, and you will hae an overflow population. Announce a lectuer or panel on "religion in our time" and you will have to higher a larger hall.

That said, I plan to still be interested in religion when academia gives up on it again as well.

Labels: academia

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Friday, May 22, 2009 Green bubble goes "pop" according to a deeply informed and well written article at National Review... wait, sorry - make that The New Republic. Listen to it at Out Loud Opinion.

I've also got a contemporary art write-up at First Things today.
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Balkanized Aesthetics

Thursday, May 21, 2009 After surveying art world quirks, Bruce Herman makes an irenic point:

I think a lot of ink could be saved, and a lot of breath too, by simply accepting that the art culture around us is engaged in pursuing what is enjoyable to those who want to participate - and leave it at that.

Etienne Gilson makes the same observation, but from another angle:

Thanks to the fine arts, matter enters by anticipation into something like the state of glory promised to it by theologians at the end of time, when it will be thoroughly spiritualized. A universe having no other function than to be beautiful would be a glorious thing indeed. Those for whom that notion means nothing should not carp at others for dreaming about it and enjoying, in the beauty of works of art, a glimpse of it (33-34).

Both Herman and Gilson suggest that different art worlds, with their accompanying aesthetic languages, should live and let live.

(Those shocked to learn that N.T. Wright was not the first to exploit the new creation trope, deep breaths... deep breaths...)

Labels: contemporary art

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009 I like the sound of Kevin DeYoung's anti-tinkering manifesto. Yes, I know I'm still in grad school, but to my (or more accurately, my wife's) credit - ten year anniversary is tomorrow.

update: I stand corrected. No decade of marriage until Friday.
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annual blog on blog post

Monday, May 18, 2009 Yes, there are too many blogs. In a way, however, there are not enough. I've long planned (but never followed through) on exerting the mental energy to come up with the perfect counter-example to Edward Gibbon's silly diphthong dismissal of Christology (chp. 21), and now I don't have to, because David at Plumb Lines did. Then there are Bruce Herman's in depth reflections on contemporary art over at Question Autonomy. Posts of such quality are rare. Too many blogs, but not enough.

I try to avoid blogging on blogging, but mythbusting never hurts, and Alan Jacobs has helpfully indicated the Achilles' heel of the medium: chronological, not qualitative, organization. I've attempted to manage this with a homespun lefthand sidebar enabling new readers to break the tyranny of the moment and to choose from past. Other blogs, please follow.

If anyone ever has a tip on how to make this blog better, please email. Next millinerd blog on blogging: 2010.
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