Following my albums of 2009 post, here is a list of all the books I read in 2009 ranked from favorite to least favorite. Not a fantastic year but a few solid choices. I was busy this year and slacked in my free time so I didn't get as much done as I'd like. Fourteen out of eighteen of these were gifts, so thanks for that and the suggestions that keep this list going each year!
I - Recommended Reading
1. Watchmen by Alan Moore, 7 out of 10
2. Takeover by Charlie Savage, 7 out of 10
3. The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappe, 7 out of 10
4. Introduction to Christianity by Joseph Ratzinger, 7 out of 10
5. The Story of Philosophy by Bryan Magee, 7 out of 10
II - “I’m going to put this out there, if you like it you can keep it, if not you can throw it back”
6. The Lamb's Supper: The Mass as Heaven on Earth, 6 out of 10
7. Stringing Together a Nation by Todd Diacon, 6 out of 10
8. American Lion: Andrew Jackson in the White House by Jon Meacham, 6 out of 10
9. Colossians Commentary by F.F. Bruce, 6 out of 10
10. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck, 6 out of 10
11. Eschatology and Ethics by Carl E. Braaten, 6 out of 10
12. Animal Farm by George Orwell, 6 out of 10
13. Nicene Christianity: Essays for a New Ecumenism by Various, 5 out of 10
14. Confessions by Augustine, 5 out of 10
15. The Shack by William Young, 5 out of 10
III - Not worth the effort you will put in
16. Six Great Ideas by Mortimer Adler, 4 out of 10
17. All Things Considered: Essays by G.K. Chesterton, 4 out of 10
18. The Frogs by Aristophanes, 3 out of 10
Monday, December 28, 2009
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
#269 Albums of 2009
These albums didn’t necessarily come out in 2009 but this is the list of all the albums I bought or was given in 2009 ranked from favorite to least favorite. Looking back at my rankings from previous years, I've noticed that I've come to like albums more that I didn't at first like and come to dislike albums that I liked on the first few listens. So this exercise is probably futile. Music is like wine and the truly good music gets better with age. I didn't really add much music to my collection this year mainly due, again, to a lack of money. So here’s my list for this year, and here’s to 2009! Suggestions and donations are welcome. Books of 2009 will be posted next.
The Arcade Fire - Neon Bible
Robert Johnson - King of the Delta Blues Singers
Monsters of Folk - Monsters of Folk
Muddy Waters - The Anthology
Good, Glad I Have, But Could've Done Without
Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
Leonard Cohen - The Essential Leonard Cohen
I Thought They'd Be Good, But I Won't Listen That Much, If At All
The Killers - Day and Age
Calexico - Carried to Dust
Thursday, December 17, 2009
#268 Catholic and Protestant Co-Existence
Despite remarkable similarities between Catholic and Protestant theology, there are still a few items that prevent us from spending Sunday morning together. I don't want to rehash the arguments one way or the other. That's been done ad nauseum elsewhere. But simply recalibrating our differences from time to time can help us to start to think about ways to come together. Here are six major Catholic tendencies that Protestants typically object to:
1. Normative Authority of Tradition and Scripture
2. The Primacy of the Bishop of Rome
3. Veneration of Mary and the Saints
4. Purgatory
5. The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist
6. Lack of Seriousness About Faith
You may be surprised to see the one you expected to see (i.e. justification by faith and not works) not make my list. That is because it's a non-issue. I've read enough and know enough Catholics and Protestants to know that this is no longer what divides us. We are essentially agreed on this point. Furthermore, if that's what divided us, then unity would be impossible. It did for years, and would today, preclude unity. The others do not, they just require creative co-existence.
The problem, of course, is that neither side is, as yet, willing to co-exist, even at the local level. But co-existence at the local level is all that is needed for unity. We don't need or want people to compromise their individual belief, but a compromise in practice will be necessary.
The problem with the Catholic Church is that it is not universal. It is particular, but it is applied universally.
The problem with the Protestant Church is that there is no Protestant Church. There are only churches in protest.
1. Normative Authority of Tradition and Scripture
2. The Primacy of the Bishop of Rome
3. Veneration of Mary and the Saints
4. Purgatory
5. The Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist
6. Lack of Seriousness About Faith
You may be surprised to see the one you expected to see (i.e. justification by faith and not works) not make my list. That is because it's a non-issue. I've read enough and know enough Catholics and Protestants to know that this is no longer what divides us. We are essentially agreed on this point. Furthermore, if that's what divided us, then unity would be impossible. It did for years, and would today, preclude unity. The others do not, they just require creative co-existence.
The problem, of course, is that neither side is, as yet, willing to co-exist, even at the local level. But co-existence at the local level is all that is needed for unity. We don't need or want people to compromise their individual belief, but a compromise in practice will be necessary.
The problem with the Catholic Church is that it is not universal. It is particular, but it is applied universally.
The problem with the Protestant Church is that there is no Protestant Church. There are only churches in protest.
Monday, December 14, 2009
#267 A Theology of Celebration
Celebration has to be made to end or else it will be made to end.
Celebration is a taste of the future, not a guaranteed future, and so not necessarily a future at all.
Celebration is Sabbath.
Celebration is extravagant.
Celebration is excess.
Celebration is deviation from mean consumption.
Celebration is unsustainable.
God is celebratory.
God is excess.
God, when he spoke his word in Jesus Christ, made his celebration to end and his fast to begin.
The divine banquet was interrupted before the foundation of the world to make clear that only those who hunger will be filled.
The God we see is the God who fasts.
To see God is to be like him.
When he appears, we shall be like him.
Celebration is a taste of the future, not a guaranteed future, and so not necessarily a future at all.
Celebration is Sabbath.
Celebration is extravagant.
Celebration is excess.
Celebration is deviation from mean consumption.
Celebration is unsustainable.
God is celebratory.
God is excess.
God, when he spoke his word in Jesus Christ, made his celebration to end and his fast to begin.
The divine banquet was interrupted before the foundation of the world to make clear that only those who hunger will be filled.
The God we see is the God who fasts.
To see God is to be like him.
When he appears, we shall be like him.
Thursday, December 10, 2009
#266 Calvinist Universalist
I'm reading through Karl Barth's Romans commentary right now and while most of it is either repetitive or not making a whole lot of sense to me, this quote stood out:
In other words, can the Calvinist fail to be a hopeful Universalist?
"Can the man who has himself known the riches of the goodness of God, and has himself perceived His revelation to be wholly undeserved, incomprehensible, and independent of human worth, dare to limit the sphere of God's operation?"
In other words, can the Calvinist fail to be a hopeful Universalist?
Monday, December 07, 2009
#265 Interesting Links XXXI
Here's a great quote by Hannah Arendt on the newest and most dangerous form of government: Bureacracy.
John Hobbins points us to a few articles by David L. Perry, a professor of ethics at Army War College.
Chuck Krulak, retired commandant of the Marine Corps gives Cheney and his ilk an earful.
Do you suffer from some strain of the Divine Flu? There are two types, according to Kim Fabricius. One strain is neo-liberalism, where one of your symptoms may be that you, "deny the divinity of Christ (while acknowledging him as great guru, right up there with the Buddha), speak of the resurrection as a “spiritual” reality (i.e. as something that happened to the disciples, not to Jesus), and so cannot worship or pray to Jesus; and, consequently, don’t know what to do with Paul." The other strain is conservative evangelicalism, where one of your symptoms may be that you, "punctuate their prayers with the word 'just' ('Father, we just pray this, and Father, we just pray that') with mind-numbing repetition, and assume that the more people you have praying about something, the more likely you are to get a result."
After listing several other symptoms of each, he then diagnoses the overarching problem: "Neo-liberals, the problem is not that you are too critical, but rather not critical enough; and conservative evangelicals, the problem is not that you are too biblical, but not biblical enough. Let the healing begin!"
Whenever I see someone reading a Dan Brown novel on the train, I just shake my head. Slate Magazine feels my pain and has created the Dan Brown interactive plot generator. Create your own in five minutes or less!
See if you can guess which crazy leftist duo held the following views: "The war struck them as an imperial folly that was doing long-term damage to US interests. The brothers lamented how easy it had been for Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to bully secretary of state Colin Powell, both the houses of Congress, and the majority of the American people into endorsing the invasion of Iraq." These were the feelings of none other than Pat Tillman and his brother Kevin who joined the Army Rangers together, as reported by Jon Krakauer. Their patriotic credentials are forever beyond question and far from giving "aid and comfort to the enemy" as Cheney likes to drone on about, they critiqued the country they loved.
Andrew Sullivan compares the U.S. in Afghanistan to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver character. He raises a good question. "How do you win a war when it is being led and conducted in a country you are not at war with?" Sullivan is referring to the QST headed by Mullah Omar in Pakistan.
Brad at The Crossed Pond points out how the bill being pushed to restrict federal funding to ACORN based on the sting videos is unconstitutional based on the prohibition against bills of attainder.
Halden Doerge lays the smack down on Mark Driscoll's smack down of those of the female persuasion
Ever wonder what it would be like if Thomas Aquinas had his own radio show? I haven't either. But here is an humorous example from Mark Shea about how he might've expounded his five arguments for the existence of God.
John Hobbins points us to a few articles by David L. Perry, a professor of ethics at Army War College.
Chuck Krulak, retired commandant of the Marine Corps gives Cheney and his ilk an earful.
Do you suffer from some strain of the Divine Flu? There are two types, according to Kim Fabricius. One strain is neo-liberalism, where one of your symptoms may be that you, "deny the divinity of Christ (while acknowledging him as great guru, right up there with the Buddha), speak of the resurrection as a “spiritual” reality (i.e. as something that happened to the disciples, not to Jesus), and so cannot worship or pray to Jesus; and, consequently, don’t know what to do with Paul." The other strain is conservative evangelicalism, where one of your symptoms may be that you, "punctuate their prayers with the word 'just' ('Father, we just pray this, and Father, we just pray that') with mind-numbing repetition, and assume that the more people you have praying about something, the more likely you are to get a result."
After listing several other symptoms of each, he then diagnoses the overarching problem: "Neo-liberals, the problem is not that you are too critical, but rather not critical enough; and conservative evangelicals, the problem is not that you are too biblical, but not biblical enough. Let the healing begin!"
Whenever I see someone reading a Dan Brown novel on the train, I just shake my head. Slate Magazine feels my pain and has created the Dan Brown interactive plot generator. Create your own in five minutes or less!
See if you can guess which crazy leftist duo held the following views: "The war struck them as an imperial folly that was doing long-term damage to US interests. The brothers lamented how easy it had been for Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld to bully secretary of state Colin Powell, both the houses of Congress, and the majority of the American people into endorsing the invasion of Iraq." These were the feelings of none other than Pat Tillman and his brother Kevin who joined the Army Rangers together, as reported by Jon Krakauer. Their patriotic credentials are forever beyond question and far from giving "aid and comfort to the enemy" as Cheney likes to drone on about, they critiqued the country they loved.
Andrew Sullivan compares the U.S. in Afghanistan to Jonathan Swift's Gulliver character. He raises a good question. "How do you win a war when it is being led and conducted in a country you are not at war with?" Sullivan is referring to the QST headed by Mullah Omar in Pakistan.
Brad at The Crossed Pond points out how the bill being pushed to restrict federal funding to ACORN based on the sting videos is unconstitutional based on the prohibition against bills of attainder.
Halden Doerge lays the smack down on Mark Driscoll's smack down of those of the female persuasion
Ever wonder what it would be like if Thomas Aquinas had his own radio show? I haven't either. But here is an humorous example from Mark Shea about how he might've expounded his five arguments for the existence of God.
Tuesday, December 01, 2009
#264 Five Defining Elements of the Decade, 2000-2009
One month to go until this first decade of the second millennium draws to a close. Ten years is enough time to be eventful for anybody. I graduated from high school, went to college, met my wife, graduated from college, got married, started my career, and had a baby. And that's just the general outline. But as a community, a nation, and a world, we've also experienced a lot together. Some of these were, still are, and always will be, defining elements of our lives. On a recent excursion into the wilderness we came up with a list of five defining elements of the decade 2000-2009. We came up with many more of course, but of all the suggestions, I think that when I look back at this decade, these five will stand out more than others. What would you add or take from the list?
1. September 11, 2001. For better or for worse, this event changed America, and by changing America, it changed the world. The fall of the towers and the deaths of over 3,000 people is tragic enough. But the real impact of 9/11 is better symbolized by the date 9/12. That is the day our reaction to the events began to take place. There we sowed the seeds of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the national security state, the rule of law pushed the breaking point, and torture. That day led to both our moral and fiscal bankruptcy. It changed conversation and it changed politics. Nothing else on the list comes close to having that kind of impact on myself, the nation, and the world. And no event in my lifetime may ever come close either.
2. The Great Recession. It's hard to assess the impact of this event given it's recent occurrence, but under many metrics it has already become the largest financial crisis since The Great Depression. Jobs have been lost, businesses have shuttered, and entire industries have been subjected to creative destruction. But the extent of the problem only reveals the extent to which a correction was overdue. The U.S. economy was living off of borrowed cash and irresponsible extension of credit. Many individuals have learned lessons that will stay with them as long as they live. The nation as a whole will probably forget within a generation and repeat the cycle.
3. The First Black President. Politics completely aside for a second, less than 150 years ago, slavery of African-Americans was the law of the land. Forty years ago Black Americans couldn't use the same toilets as White Americans. Now within a generation, a second generation descendant of a Kenyan immigrant, is shitting on the finest toilet in the land. A black American, Barack Obama, is the leader of the free world. That is truly monumental. More astonishing still was the large margin of his electoral victory including a victory is the southern state of North Carolina.
4. The Digital Revolution.
Exhibit A, The Music Revolution: While mp3 players had existed before, Apple released its iPod on October 23rd, 2001, leading to major changes in how people bought, sold, and listened to music.
Exhibit B, The Journalism Revolution: Since Matt Drudge appeared in the late 90s, new forms of media, such as blogs and independent online sites, and aging readership have led to a sharp decline in traditional channels for journalism such as as network television and newspapers. Exhibit C, The Photograpic Revolution: While the first consumer-oriented digital cameras were sold in the late 90s, this decade is when we saw the greatest proliferation of their use and growth of their features. Now, at the end of the decade, everybody has them. And thanks to them, we all document more of the world than we ever did.
Exhibit D, The Web Revolution: The changes in music, journalism, and photography were all enabled by what is commonly called Web 2.0, which is defined as any application that facilitates interactive information sharing. Napster, iTunes, Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Google are all well-known examples. These tools have made the world a smaller place in just 10 years.
5. The Natural Disasters. Shortly after Christmas 2004, over 300,000 people were wiped from the face of the earth in an instant in one of the worst natural disasters in history. Waves up to 100 feet tall washed over the shores of 11 Asian countries. It caused the earth to vibrate (literally) and reverberates in every theodicy since. The aftershocks were felt as far away as Alaska with waves as far as Africa and Antarctica. It's just as well, since the memory echos everywhere too. What else can we say? The magnitude leaves us speechless. In the U.S. we experienced disaster of our own eight months later when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in quick succession on the gulf coast. We'd experienced stronger and more deadly hurricanes, but Katrina caused the New Orleans levee system to fail resulting in an apocalyptic scenario for the residents unable or unwilling to flee ahead of time. It laid bare in graphic form the racial divide that exists in every city in America. And we nearly lost an entire city.
1. September 11, 2001. For better or for worse, this event changed America, and by changing America, it changed the world. The fall of the towers and the deaths of over 3,000 people is tragic enough. But the real impact of 9/11 is better symbolized by the date 9/12. That is the day our reaction to the events began to take place. There we sowed the seeds of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the national security state, the rule of law pushed the breaking point, and torture. That day led to both our moral and fiscal bankruptcy. It changed conversation and it changed politics. Nothing else on the list comes close to having that kind of impact on myself, the nation, and the world. And no event in my lifetime may ever come close either.
2. The Great Recession. It's hard to assess the impact of this event given it's recent occurrence, but under many metrics it has already become the largest financial crisis since The Great Depression. Jobs have been lost, businesses have shuttered, and entire industries have been subjected to creative destruction. But the extent of the problem only reveals the extent to which a correction was overdue. The U.S. economy was living off of borrowed cash and irresponsible extension of credit. Many individuals have learned lessons that will stay with them as long as they live. The nation as a whole will probably forget within a generation and repeat the cycle.
3. The First Black President. Politics completely aside for a second, less than 150 years ago, slavery of African-Americans was the law of the land. Forty years ago Black Americans couldn't use the same toilets as White Americans. Now within a generation, a second generation descendant of a Kenyan immigrant, is shitting on the finest toilet in the land. A black American, Barack Obama, is the leader of the free world. That is truly monumental. More astonishing still was the large margin of his electoral victory including a victory is the southern state of North Carolina.
4. The Digital Revolution.
Exhibit A, The Music Revolution: While mp3 players had existed before, Apple released its iPod on October 23rd, 2001, leading to major changes in how people bought, sold, and listened to music.
Exhibit B, The Journalism Revolution: Since Matt Drudge appeared in the late 90s, new forms of media, such as blogs and independent online sites, and aging readership have led to a sharp decline in traditional channels for journalism such as as network television and newspapers. Exhibit C, The Photograpic Revolution: While the first consumer-oriented digital cameras were sold in the late 90s, this decade is when we saw the greatest proliferation of their use and growth of their features. Now, at the end of the decade, everybody has them. And thanks to them, we all document more of the world than we ever did.
Exhibit D, The Web Revolution: The changes in music, journalism, and photography were all enabled by what is commonly called Web 2.0, which is defined as any application that facilitates interactive information sharing. Napster, iTunes, Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Wikipedia, and Google are all well-known examples. These tools have made the world a smaller place in just 10 years.
5. The Natural Disasters. Shortly after Christmas 2004, over 300,000 people were wiped from the face of the earth in an instant in one of the worst natural disasters in history. Waves up to 100 feet tall washed over the shores of 11 Asian countries. It caused the earth to vibrate (literally) and reverberates in every theodicy since. The aftershocks were felt as far away as Alaska with waves as far as Africa and Antarctica. It's just as well, since the memory echos everywhere too. What else can we say? The magnitude leaves us speechless. In the U.S. we experienced disaster of our own eight months later when Hurricanes Katrina and Rita struck in quick succession on the gulf coast. We'd experienced stronger and more deadly hurricanes, but Katrina caused the New Orleans levee system to fail resulting in an apocalyptic scenario for the residents unable or unwilling to flee ahead of time. It laid bare in graphic form the racial divide that exists in every city in America. And we nearly lost an entire city.
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