Someone had posted on a blog (sadly I forget who) their top songs that they never skip on their IPod. Being the music addict I always create a new playlist so specific that I usually do not skip anything. But, there have been a few recently that at which I will stop if shuffling through randomly. And boy is it a random list. So here is another peep into my personality I guess…

Not much has changed since the historic Danforth Commission Report (here is a review of one part of it; hard to find a good sample of it online). Part of that extensive report in the late 1960’s was an extensive survey of campus ministry groups. These groups. such as Campus Crusade, tended to maintain the conservativism in many Christian circles through the 1960’s and so on. While there were more liberal student groups there has been quite a bit more fluctuation with these groups’ success.

An article reports on a survey of college students from California as well as other kinds of campus ministries that are emerging among the standbys such as Campus Crusade and Navigators among others. Here is an excerpt from the article I find to be very optimistic. I would like to see conservatives and liberals engaged in more constructive dialogue and to achieve common goals rather than continuous bickering over finer theological points (even though reasoned argument is needed to progress theology which has a very slow history of advancing as an intellectual pursuit).

This weekly pizza lunch at Wesley House, a ministry of the United Methodist Church, is just one of a half-dozen Christian events Nick George, 19, will attend this week with friends from the Navigators, a thriving campus evangelical group…

…Many students attracted to Wesley House are liberals working for social justice, from the inclusion of gays and lesbians to outreach with Muslim and anti-war groups.

That one student’s view of homosexuality or abortion may differ from the view of another Christian — eating pizza nearby — doesn’t faze graduate student Leland Spencer, 23.

“All people, from the far left to the far right are welcome to be here,” Spencer said. “We have some good discussions.”

Here’s to hope that constructive dialogue that recognizes, accepts, and then pushes through and beyond difference can take root on our college campuses!

I have noted or glanced over in some places (here, here, and here for three) that one’s understanding the nature of faith has a lot to do with how one understands religious belief in relation to scientific inquiry rooted in logico-deductive rational processes. It is clear that the current trinity of atheist thought in Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens assumes that faith is something blind. They are interpreting faith as an epistemological category in which there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to substantiate the object to which faith is directed, namely God.

The hypothesis here, if you will, is that all kinds of faith bear no distinction and that fundamentally all forms of faith must fall under the category of that for which there is no evidence. Since, therefore, there is no such evidence to substantiate the very foundation of the belief in something in any form of faith, regardless of how one slices and dices the definition, it is irrational and perhaps even delusional to have any kind of belief that can be so described as faith.

The question is how faith is being defined as an epistemological category. In this usage it is a category of knowledge that is being tested as an hypothesis in terms of empirical substantiation. And this is done in terms of distinctly scientific processes rooted in hypothesis testing and external validation of those processes. The entire enterprise of scientifically-formed knowledge claims is rooted in predictability. Low yield of predictability leads one to reconsider hypotheses or the means by which hypotheses are tested. High yield of predictability will lead one to enough confidence in the probability that the hypothesis is valid that the construction of a theory through which to view a set of processes about observed phenomenon can thus be offered. This is what all scientists look for. Continue Reading “The (Atheist’s/Naturalist’s) Problem with Faith” »

There is now evidence that early humans may have hunted Mastodons. An NPR story discusses it. Maybe it was all that tumultuous water in the Great Flood that must have projected a spear into the Mastodon and the conspiracy of science to produce such a painting or to lie to us that is as old as it is.

I ran across this quote from Julie A. Reuben’s fantastic intellectual history of higher education, “The Making of the Modern University“. It is as clear a description of current debates among atheists and theologians on the bookshelves today:

Promoters of science depicted theologians as dogmatic and obstructionist. In their view religious thinkers approached all answers with pre-conceived answers. Religious inquiry was, therefore, biased and partisan. Advocates of science also depicted theologians as stifling inquiry by accusing people who disagreed with their beliefs of endangering the welfare and morality of humanity. According to this view, theologians adopted an air of absolute authority and were intolerant of all other views (p. 56).

This is in reference to the evolution of scientific inquiry from the old Baconian system to the progressive system of inquiry we use today and its effect on natural theology and theologians attempts to conform scientific investigation to theological propositions. The problem with the Baconian system is that it was rooted in the discovery of fixed and absolute laws that we observe empirically and then describe in detail. It was the task of essentially creating a one to one relationship between the laws of the universe and our observations. However, evolution problematized this systematic way of doing science because it revealed the need for hypothesis and theory construction in order to understand the complex processes of nature. Evolution revealed a far less tidy system. This was in the decades immediately following the publication of Darwin’s Origin in the 1860’s.

This debate sounds an awful lot like the problems that Richard Dawkins and others have with certain kinds of theological thinking like intelligent design and so-called “creation science” or fundamentalist dogma. What it does not account for are progressive theologies that developed in the 20th century as theological responses to unshakable dogmatism.

It seems like myopia breeds myopia on either side of the argument quite selectively. Ignoring a counter claim does not resolve the problem a counter claim causes. Theologians who support creation science do this with arguments that are clear and direct contradictions to their arguments. They can always appeal to “That’s the way the creator made it. Isn’t that amazing.” Atheists will ignore variance in religious behavior, dogma, and belief in order to maintain a monolithic and grossly exaggerated understanding of faith and understandings of God in order to support their beliefs about the absence of deity and the impracticability of faith.

This is why I have become increasingly bored with the arguments with atheists about many of these issues even as I have become bored with fundamentalists of the same. Ignoring the point is a passive way to say “I am right” without offering a clear rational basis for one’s claim. If I read some of the arguments regarding religion that Dawkins presents, as well as many of the theological arguments against science practiced by atheists, in a paper submitted to me by one of my students, it would most certainly get a low mark on the rubric for that outcome.

We have been through this debate in the late 19th century and there are the ignorant among us who choose to perpetuate it. Atheists and theologians continue to speak in terms for which they clearly have no depth of understanding rich enough to account for the problems inherent to their argument. Without a cross-disciplinary discussion, this academic dishonesty will continue selling books loaded with crap to unsuspecting laypersons who will take up the fallacy of appeal to authority and blindly agree. This is how ignorance spreads like a virus. The only source of inoculation is a good education. In absence of that, the public intellectual must continue to inject rational killer cells into the minds of our very gullible culture.

A-Rod might nab 275 Million over 10 years with the Yankees -a team whose hitting is great but whose pitching is dreadful, right Mr. Pavano? I have earned my keep as much as the latter as a baseball player. But A-Rod’s likely salary is like a ten year loan plus a little bit of interest to buy the Pittsburgh Pirates franchise! Granted A-Rod’s publicity alone might get you a better ROI in the long run than the lowly Bucs, but come on! The greed in baseball is nasty stuff and the Yanks payroll exacerbates it.

Barry Bonds breaks the honorable Hank Aaron’s record and is now very likely to get slammed with perjury for testifying about performance enhancing drugs he still insists he did not take. He took them to break the record which is as obvious as the weather is getting colder up north.

If A-Rod sticks out his likely new contract for the duration, he might break Bonds’ record. At that point his greed will be a non-issue. Unless breaking that record in pinstripes is so important to him that he hits the drugs as well at some point. We all know that A-Rod is all about his stats anyway.

This overall distaste with baseball could also have something to do with the fact that I have tried to be an Orioles fan. Hasn’t worked out well for me since the Ripken family left the establishment and the Angelos’ (Angel of Death that is) assumed control of that once noble organization - I actually cheered them along with the entire Baltimore-Washington area during their awesome 0-21 start back in … was it 1988? It was not all that bad because we knew that it was an anomaly, after all we won the series 5 years before that. Also the Redskins were holding the region floating high enough at the time that baseball did not matter much. Which would be a natural segue into the horror that is Dan Snyder. The man has all the good intentions of a good fan, but the football savvy of well, me, a fan.

I posted this as a response on pomomusings and thought I would share here for the young soon-to-be pastors and ministerial professionals out there. There are some things about accepting a call they just don’t teach you at seminary.

So, here’s some advice from someone who passed everything and decided not to be a pastor just short of circulating the PIF I had already drafted:

1. Be yourself and do not succumb to the roles you hear about pastoral types. The truth is you do not know what kind of pastor you are going to be other than the life you have lived in your calling and life of faith so far.

2. Be honest with them and yourself. The last thing you want is to pander (even unconsciously) to a congregation you think just might dig you and you might dig them. They might hate you. If they do, then it was not meant to be. The more honest you are with them about who you are and with the language you use to describe yourself, the better you will be in the long-run.

3. Be patient. The hardest part of all. You will need a job after you graduate. That’s the pragmatic reality here. But you do not want to become wed to a congregation that wants to screw you over to spite a previously bad situation. There are a lot of congregations aching out there and many of the old timers are looking for fresh blood to transfer their angst at their old pastor (who is often someone entrenched and now gone after a long period of time). I have seen many a young minister get lured into an unhealthy situation, and when they cannot wave a wand and heal the dysfunction, they get steamrolled. These are churches better served by old interim war-horses who have been around the block and can absorb it. You need to grow not get pummeled out there.

4. Don’t over jargon your PIF. Folks who are going to read it need to know that you are ready to love them and bring a taste of the kingdom to them. All churches are different levels of dysfunctional families and the pastor is viewed as the one to bring the good word and a sense of peace and healing. Love of neighbor is about the most powerful expression of the Gospel and it sticks - especially in the small church.

5. Three “C’s” of leadership - Clarity, Consistency, and Creativity. Learn how to express how you will live out these three characteristics in your leadership style. It’s not unlike raising a toddler or training a dog. You have to be clear with your vision and your words, consistent in your application of policies and details as well as how you interact with various different people, and creative to think outside the box and direct the program of the church to places they might not have seen before. The more you can express your ideas in terms of measurable goals the better. That’s the heart of effective administration 101 (another course not taught at seminary).

6. If they don’t dig you, it’s OK, but you have to be willing to take the risk and be brutally honest with yourself and with them. The other choice is to wind up on the heap of burned out pastors who accepted a raw deal their first time out.

7. Here’s the other harsh reality. A lot of these churches are going to die out - it’s inevitable for a lot of them. Many churches out there are holding on to the building, the funeral plot, and long retired memories of how things used to be. They want someone to save them and that is not realistic and is unfair for the young pastor to try to do. They will not get the members and hence the numbers to keep the mortgage and electric payments up much less a pastor’s salary or a manse going. So look at demographics to see how many new families have moved in the area in the past 5 years. Also look at real estate turnover to see how long a family is likely to stay in the area. Without youth churches die. I have read the sociological studies on membership that substantiate it! Babies = membership over time. You need a congregation that has babies and keeps them there. It’s called the demographic imperative and pastors need to know what it is and how it affects their ministry over time.

So that’s advice I never heard, and if I did, I might actually be a pastor today!

Good luck.