sad news

Ray Anderson passed away on Sunday. Along with many others, I will miss him greatly. I'll write more later, but a faculty member told us of his passing, and I was saddened. Good bye, Professor Anderson, and thank you. I do hope to catch up to you again and tell a few more tales.

update: there is a moving eulogy at Faith and Theology.

clip of the month: Alice

Pogo is a talented musician who takes samples from soundtracks, cuts and arranges them, adds some other elements and creates some wonderful jazzy, chill stuff. This is the kind of music I am working towards making myself. Well that and the 1-hit top 40 moneymaker.. :P

Alice in Wonderland is perfect, too. I love both the original books and the Disney movie. So trippy. Maybe its the 80's in me, but my aesthetic predilections remain firmly grounded in surrealism, though I am not sure why. I leave it to your conjecture as you watch:

things that should disturb you

Having spent some good time now being positive, we now return you to things that should disturb you:

• Daniel K Eng discusses a disturbing point, the shortage of American-born Chinese pastors. There are some important discussions about church and culture here.
• Halden at Inhabitatio Dei notes that Evanglicals Care More About Cussing than the Treatment of Women.
• Also, he and others have seen the disturbing American Patriot’s Bible which glorifies war and military. I wonder if they just delete the Prophets and Jesus?
• Oh, what's the big deal you say? Should we not get too worked up about the power of military imagery. Perhaps you've not read the whole story about the abortion killer. Turns out he was an active member of the army of God. Well thank God somebody makes a Bible for him, now, too.
  
• Finally, on a more abstract note, hehe, perhaps we can interpret scripture by taking historical responsibility for our interpretation, despite Foucault's insistence otherwise. Complete with Rowan Williams quote :)

race: good news

A fascinating article of the AP wire: Multiracial people become fastest growing US group
In many ways this hopefully gains ground in defeating the racialization of America, by prohibiting us from resolving people's identities into simple binary categories. Amongst other nuggets in the passage:

"The significance of race as we know it in today's legal and government categories will be obsolete in less than 20 years," said William H. Frey, a demographer at Brookings Institution.
"The rise of mixed-race voters will dilute the racial identity politics that have become prevalent in past elections," he said.

While that's a little over-optimistic for me, the prospect is encouraging. Perhaps even one day, a dark skinned person will not be thrust into the sterotypes of "black" America puts on African Americans, regardless of their internal identification as cablinasian, or other. I can't help that it erodes some of the captivity to racialized thinking. This is not to say there are not differences between people to acknowledge. I am not a proponent of color blind thinking, but I do hope for a time where we celebrate how we are all God's children.

So what does this mean for he church? Dave Gibbons has some thoughts. What about you?

updates

OK, a couple of updates:

• There are a number of new updates in the theology lectures post! Volf, Ramachandra, Moltmann, and more Hauerwas.
• I am removing the "currently reading" box. Does anybody really care? It's like a tribal tattoo for theoblogians. I want to be insightful, I want to be approachable. I don't want to be avantcore. I haven't changed it in, like a year. I'll just write reviews and let people judge my comprehension, I think.
• Speaking of .mp3 links - is there a way to html link to specific iTunes lectures? Or has the real evil empire already won?
• I am mucking about with the site. So I find this law at work in me:I know enough to be really annoying, but not to do what I want.
• I had some great book ideas. Unfortunately, this guy beat me to it. Oh well, maybe I can be a hip edgy poorly drawn internet cartoonist instead.
• "How can Evangelical church avoid the fate of the mainline churches?" If you have to ask...
• -at least they are improving credibility with interviews of such luminaries as Joe the plumber. I feel a little dirty just publicizing it.
• Thanks to Chrisendom for pointing out a free book. Zizek's How to Read Lacan is here. Lacan was pretty influential and Zizek is crazy like a fox. I am looking forward to reading yet another book I did not write.
  
• Instead, you can have this from me

• 

quote: creation

"Moreover, the visibility by which the Son renders visible the invisible Father extends to the act of creation itself, which takes place through the Son. Therefore, creation itself and the many making it up exist through the visibility by which the Son of the Trinity discloses the invisible God. Creation participates in the Son's work of making the Father visible. In the Son, they are icons, or images of God and thus are marked with an invisible depth that exceeds what appears, though that invisible depth articulates itself precisely in what appears. In this strict sense, then, creation - contrary to the claims of the Gnostics- does not exist "outside" of God..." J. Kameron Carter, Race: a Theological Account, p.24

So far, this is a fantastic book. Thanks, Mr. Carter. I thought this quote nicely illustrated a way to understand, among other things, the witness of creation without falling into a kind of natural theology.

frightening news

so there's a lot I could say here, but won't. Just an interesting link to a tally of all NFL players arrest since 2000. 25+ this year alone. I'm not sure how to spin this theologically, but it is pretty intense. Got to be a higher % then the average population? Well, for those of you who like train wrecks and object lessons in the corruption of power and wealth;
A Record of NFL Arrests since 2000

grad school

Recently, David Fitch made a compelling argument for Ph.D pastors, as I related in this post. A couple of folks have asked me if I intend to go back to school for a Ph.D. In a word: no. Thomas H. Benton, that's his pen name, has some fascinating reflections on the academic world in an essay entitled, "Graduate School in the Humanities: Just Don't Go!" His follow up comments are here. He recommends that only those who are independently wealthy undertake it as it means shirking normal adult responsibilities in order to compete for dwindling jobs. In short, he calls the academic system exploitative.

I was particularly intrigued by his comments about student motivations:

They are emerging from 16 years of institutional living: a clear, step-by-step process of advancement toward a goal, with measured outcomes, constant reinforcement and support, and clearly defined hierarchies. The world outside school seems so unstructured, ambiguous, difficult to navigate, and frightening.

How insightful! He identifies the shaping power of the systems that we live in and some core motivations. Academics are precisely geared to prey upon human brokenness- the chance to be important and please authority at some level through carefully explicit criteria. All you have to do is pay a price and be good enough......Just like church(?). It is a good example of how we must consider the ways in which bigger forces in our lives try to shape us: job, work, country, etc.

If there is one problem with the essay, I think it is that Benton seems to be speaking to white students' situation. There are nuances to minority voices holding seats in the academic world that he doesn't address; power issues left unexamined. Still, there is great merit to what he writes, and it is fascinating to consider at a time when churches care less and less about degrees and more about experience when hiring. What's your take?