the personified crown

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.

Audio Vitality

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.

Academic Babylon

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.

The Other Demythologizer

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.

in praise of obligation

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.