For the first year in nearly two decades, I purchased no music so I have no list of favorite albums of 2010. But here is a list of all the books I read this year ranked from favorite to least favorite. Once again, I didn't even make it to twenty this year, but it was a busy year. I purchased seven of these, was given five, borrowed two, got two from the library, and read one off a Kindle, for a total of 17.
I - Recommended Reading
1. The Moral Vision of the New Testament by Richard Hays, 9 out of 10
2. Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton, 8 out of 10
3. The Epistle to the Romans by Karl Barth, 8 out of 10
4. Republic by Plato, 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”
5. It's Not About the Bike by Lance Armstrong, 6 out of 10
6. The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides, 6 out of 10
7. The Essential Dialogues by Plato, 6 out of 10
8. Hiroshima by John Hersey, 6 out of 10
9. Summa of the Summa by Thomas Aquinas, ed. Peter Kreeft, 6 out of 10
10. A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens, 6 out of 10
11. The Histories by Herodotus, 6 out of 10
12. Shepherding a Child's Heart by Tedd Tripp, 6 out of 10
13. Same Kind of Different As Me by Ron Hall, 6 out of 10
14. Economic Policy by Ludwig Von Mises, 6 out of 10
15. The Road by Cormac McCarthy, 5 out of 10
16. When Helping Hurts by Brian Fikkert, 5 out of 10
17. The Tempest by William Shakespeare, 5 out of 10
III - Not worth the effort you will put in
Nothing to report in this category. All books were at least halfway decent this year.
Wednesday, December 22, 2010
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
#337 Advice For Those Entering College
1. Don't try to find a career you'll love. Odds are good that you won't find it and there's a good chance that if you do, the enjoyment will be fleeting. Rather, find a career where lifelong contentment is a real possibility. Contentment is a treasure that most pirates on the seas of life never find.
2. The old advice that said "just get the piece of paper," i.e. the degree, was wrong. Avoid college and the expense, debt, and disillusionment that go along with it until and unless you have a specific career in mind. Many of us were a perfect fit and destined to thrive in some career that didn't require a college degree and college has either stunted our growth in that area or diverted us from it permanently.
3. Regarding the proverbial history degree, if you're going to go for it, go with gusto. And you can insert sociology, English, music, art, philosophy and any of the other liberal arts here. Have a good idea of exactly what you will do with it. Have a good idea of why it is that you are paying that much for a degree in that subject and why it is that you are spending four years learning something you can learn on your own as a hobby. Make no mistake, there are very good reasons to pay that much and spend four years earning those degrees. Just make sure one of those reasons is yours. Parlay your English degree into a high school teaching position and be the best there ever was. If philosophy, be a voracious reader of it and be ahead of the class. If art is your thing, there's nothing wrong with being a starving artist. There is something wrong with being a dispassionate starving artist. The hard sciences and my business degree leave room for half-asses like me. The liberal arts require something more.
4. Choose classes by the reputation of the professor, regardless of the subject matter.
5. Load-up. You've only got one shot at this and tuition is often fixed up to a certain maximum number of credit hours.
6. Don't overestimate the quality of education you will find at big-name schools while underestimating the ability of the smalls to provide you with the same. Don't underestimate the job opportunities, contacts, and name-recognition that the big-name schools will offer while overestimating the ability of a smalls to provide you with the same.
2. The old advice that said "just get the piece of paper," i.e. the degree, was wrong. Avoid college and the expense, debt, and disillusionment that go along with it until and unless you have a specific career in mind. Many of us were a perfect fit and destined to thrive in some career that didn't require a college degree and college has either stunted our growth in that area or diverted us from it permanently.
3. Regarding the proverbial history degree, if you're going to go for it, go with gusto. And you can insert sociology, English, music, art, philosophy and any of the other liberal arts here. Have a good idea of exactly what you will do with it. Have a good idea of why it is that you are paying that much for a degree in that subject and why it is that you are spending four years learning something you can learn on your own as a hobby. Make no mistake, there are very good reasons to pay that much and spend four years earning those degrees. Just make sure one of those reasons is yours. Parlay your English degree into a high school teaching position and be the best there ever was. If philosophy, be a voracious reader of it and be ahead of the class. If art is your thing, there's nothing wrong with being a starving artist. There is something wrong with being a dispassionate starving artist. The hard sciences and my business degree leave room for half-asses like me. The liberal arts require something more.
4. Choose classes by the reputation of the professor, regardless of the subject matter.
5. Load-up. You've only got one shot at this and tuition is often fixed up to a certain maximum number of credit hours.
6. Don't overestimate the quality of education you will find at big-name schools while underestimating the ability of the smalls to provide you with the same. Don't underestimate the job opportunities, contacts, and name-recognition that the big-name schools will offer while overestimating the ability of a smalls to provide you with the same.
Friday, December 10, 2010
#336 A Failure to Measure
In the last post and (I believe) the post about not voting, I used the analogy of a decision between various heads of the same beastly body to describe voting in order to illustrate that what matters is culture and virtue and that until these change, legislative changes will be mere window dressing. I think this is also, in part, what Alisdair MacIntyre used St. Benedict of Nursia to illustrate at the end of After Virtue. While my analogy draws on Biblical apocalyptic imagery (The Beast), in the fourth book of Republic, Plato makes a very similar remark using a very similar analogy from the Greek thought world (The Hydra):
Surely it's hugely significant that this is the lead-in to the dialogue's lengthy discussion of it's main concern: justice. Plato's work was in teaching his guardians the first principles and then allowing legislation "to naturally flow out." Similarly, the work of the church is in teaching culture to measure, not in teaching those who can't measure to legislate.
"Socrates: And without divine help, Adeimantus, they will go on forever making and mending the laws... Yes, I said; and what a delightful life they lead! They are always doctoring and increasing and complicating their disorders, and always fancying that they will be cured by any panacea which anybody advises them to try... do you not admire, I said, the coolness and dexterity of these ready minsters of political corruption?
Adeimantus: ... not all of them, for there are some whom the applause of the multitude has deluded into the belief that they are really statesmen.
Socrates: What do you mean? I said; you should have more feeling for them. When a man cannot measure, and a great many others who cannot measure declare that he is four cubits high, can he help believing what they say?
Adeimantus: Nay, he said, certainly not in that case.
Socrates: Well, then, do not be angry with them; for are they not as good as a play, trying their hand at paltry reforms such as I was describing; they are always fancying that by legislation they will make an end of frauds in contracts, and the other rascalities which I was mentioning, not knowing that they are in reality cutting off the heads of a hydra?"
-- Plato, Republic, 4.425e - 4.426e
Surely it's hugely significant that this is the lead-in to the dialogue's lengthy discussion of it's main concern: justice. Plato's work was in teaching his guardians the first principles and then allowing legislation "to naturally flow out." Similarly, the work of the church is in teaching culture to measure, not in teaching those who can't measure to legislate.
Wednesday, December 08, 2010
#335 You Scratch My Back...
Conspiracy? Well... obviously.
First, government scratches the back of big business:
Next, big business returns the favor:
So we have a vivid example of an employee of our citizen government (i.e. Obama) working on behalf of big business while he's on our payroll. But nevermind that. Let's prosecute Mr. Assange, shall we?
Anyway, last I checked, the judicial branch, not the executive branch, was in the business of deeming what is and isn't illegal in the United States. But who cares about the proper function of government anymore, eh? The leaking of information is most certainly illegal and those individuals should be duly prosecuted. However, the publishing of leaked information is not. Otherwise, Bob Woodward and any other journalist who actually bothered to hold governments around the world accountable would've been in prison long ago. I wonder if Mrs. Palin thinks we should target Mr. Woodward for assassination.
Sure enough, our Platonic guardians will change the law to keep the truth hidden with overwhelming bipartisan support and everybody will think America is safe and we'll all pat each other on the backs. No doubt they're drafting up the laws now. In reality, government actions will only become more secretive, dark, and corrupt with absolutely no check or balance left. Prepare to have journalism neutered.
But society can choose to go in one of two directions: towards a more closed or towards a more open society; towards larger, more secretive governments, or towards governments of, by, and for the people; towards a government which belongs to the people, or towards a people which belongs to the government. Cablegate, at the very least, gives us as citizens the opportuity to choose which path we want to take. That way, we only have ourselves to blame when it all goes to hell.
It's clear that anyone who thought Obama would put an end to the gross expansion of executive power that took place under the Bush administration was sorely mistaken. Remember, when you vote in 2012, whether it be for Obama, Palin, Romney, or Huckabee, you are voting for the same beast. Your only choice is between which head of that beast you want to represent the rest. Not much of a choice.
First, government scratches the back of big business:
"New cables released by the WikiLeaks website disclose how Visa and Mastercard received lobbying support from the Obama administration. The US was concerned that Russia was planning a new credit card payments system which would lose the two companies billions of dollars in processing fees. The US was concerned that Russia was planning a new credit card payments system which would lose the two companies billions of dollars in processing fees." -- From the Telegraph
Next, big business returns the favor:
"MasterCard is the latest in a string of U.S.-based Internet companies - including Visa, Amazon.com, PayPal Inc. and EveryDNS - to cut ties to WikiLeaks in recent days amid intense U.S. government pressure... WikiLeaks' extensive releases of secret U.S. diplomatic cables have embarrassed U.S. allies, angered rivals, and reopened old wounds across the world. U.S. officials in Washington say other countries have curtailed their dealings with the U.S. government because of WikiLeaks' actions. PayPal Vice President Osama Bedier said the company froze WikiLeaks' account after seeing a letter from the U.S. State Department to WikiLeaks saying that the group's activities "were deemed illegal in the United States." -- From The Washington Post
So we have a vivid example of an employee of our citizen government (i.e. Obama) working on behalf of big business while he's on our payroll. But nevermind that. Let's prosecute Mr. Assange, shall we?
Anyway, last I checked, the judicial branch, not the executive branch, was in the business of deeming what is and isn't illegal in the United States. But who cares about the proper function of government anymore, eh? The leaking of information is most certainly illegal and those individuals should be duly prosecuted. However, the publishing of leaked information is not. Otherwise, Bob Woodward and any other journalist who actually bothered to hold governments around the world accountable would've been in prison long ago. I wonder if Mrs. Palin thinks we should target Mr. Woodward for assassination.
Sure enough, our Platonic guardians will change the law to keep the truth hidden with overwhelming bipartisan support and everybody will think America is safe and we'll all pat each other on the backs. No doubt they're drafting up the laws now. In reality, government actions will only become more secretive, dark, and corrupt with absolutely no check or balance left. Prepare to have journalism neutered.
But society can choose to go in one of two directions: towards a more closed or towards a more open society; towards larger, more secretive governments, or towards governments of, by, and for the people; towards a government which belongs to the people, or towards a people which belongs to the government. Cablegate, at the very least, gives us as citizens the opportuity to choose which path we want to take. That way, we only have ourselves to blame when it all goes to hell.
It's clear that anyone who thought Obama would put an end to the gross expansion of executive power that took place under the Bush administration was sorely mistaken. Remember, when you vote in 2012, whether it be for Obama, Palin, Romney, or Huckabee, you are voting for the same beast. Your only choice is between which head of that beast you want to represent the rest. Not much of a choice.
Monday, December 06, 2010
#334 Colossians 1:21-23
As God has reconciled all things to himself through Christ, the Colossian Christians are lucky enough to have been included.
F.F. Bruce suggests the "as was shown by" rendering above in order, he says, to exclude "any suggestion that the enmity was the consequence of the wicked works." The translators of the NET Bible make a similar point. But really? We don't want any suggestion? What does this do to our interpretation of Romans 3:23 which says that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory? Does it mean that it's better to interpret Romans 3:23 to be saying that we both sinned and fell short as a result of our estrangement and hostile mind, rather than the traditional reading which says that we fell short as a result of our sin? In other words, are sinful works merely a display of a hostile mind, with the hostile mind being what has condemned us? Does Jesus save us then by giving us a new mind, renewing our mind as it were? How does Jesus save us?
The simple fact that the thirteen letters of Paul are all addressed to Christians while being filled with warnings is enough to demolish the evangelical idea that says, "Once saved, always saved," otherwise known as "perseverance of the saints" in Calvinist circles. But if you're looking for a more succinct statement from Paul, you could do no better than the passage above. As Paul says explicitly, the Colossians are currently reconciled and ready to be presented holy, blameless, and irreproachable. In the parlance of our time, the Colossians to whom Paul is writing are "saved." If you disagree, ask yourself, is it possible to be reconciled to God without being saved? Is it possible to be presented holy, presented blameless, presented irreproachable before God without being saved? If the answer is no, then it is clear that Paul believes the Colossians to have been "saved."
But Paul makes it clear that they are so only contingently. This present declaration of both present and future standing before God is only true inasmuch as they remain stable in faith without shifting from the hope of the gospel. Paul believed that reconciled folks could retroactively become unreconciled based on the stability of their faith and hope. He believed that the saved could become unsaved. We can agree or disagree, but what Paul believed is clear.
So where does that leave the concept of Christian assurance? How then can we have assurance? In Christ of course! I've often thought in my mind that prayer doesn't work. Only God in Christ works. In the same way there is no assurance of salvation for the Christian. There is only assurance in God through Christ. Prayer and salvation are gifts offered by a God who alone is sure. Gifts are never sure. The giver always is.
What did the "shifting from the hope of the gospel" that Paul is concerned about look like? Was it outright denial, or just sin, or both? Maybe the key to those questions is found in Paul's statement about which gospel he fears them shifting from,
This particular statement serves a very specific function and it's telling that this is the second time Paul has mentioned this gospel being preached in all the world in the short span of chapter one, especially in a letter known as one which appears to be combating some kind of local heresy. That this heresy was the occasion of Paul's letter to the Colossians will become clear in chapter two.
We can only speculate, and many people have, what this particular heresy might have involved, but regardless, it's likely there were multiple gospels on the market by the mid first-century. Paul is concerned that the Colossians Christians are not captivated by these other gospels but rather that they continue to hold firm to the particular one which they originally heard from Epaphras. This same gospel is endorsed by Paul and indeed is the same one that has been (past tense) preached (v. 23) and is bearing (present tense) fruit all over the world. Make no mistake: Paul is slapping an ID tag on his gospel. This is the real gospel; the catholic, apostolic gospel. This makes clear that Paul isn't warning against generic sin, per se. His is a very specific warning against shifting from a very specific gospel.
You also, who formerly were estranged and hostile in mind, as was shown by your wicked works, he has now nevertheless reconciled in the body of his flesh, through death, to present you holy, blameless, and irreproachable in his presence - provided you remain firmly founded and stable in your faith and are not shifted from the hope of the gospel which you heard. This gospel has been preached in all creation under heaven; of this gospel I, Paul, have been made a minister.
F.F. Bruce suggests the "as was shown by" rendering above in order, he says, to exclude "any suggestion that the enmity was the consequence of the wicked works." The translators of the NET Bible make a similar point. But really? We don't want any suggestion? What does this do to our interpretation of Romans 3:23 which says that all have sinned and fallen short of God's glory? Does it mean that it's better to interpret Romans 3:23 to be saying that we both sinned and fell short as a result of our estrangement and hostile mind, rather than the traditional reading which says that we fell short as a result of our sin? In other words, are sinful works merely a display of a hostile mind, with the hostile mind being what has condemned us? Does Jesus save us then by giving us a new mind, renewing our mind as it were? How does Jesus save us?
The simple fact that the thirteen letters of Paul are all addressed to Christians while being filled with warnings is enough to demolish the evangelical idea that says, "Once saved, always saved," otherwise known as "perseverance of the saints" in Calvinist circles. But if you're looking for a more succinct statement from Paul, you could do no better than the passage above. As Paul says explicitly, the Colossians are currently reconciled and ready to be presented holy, blameless, and irreproachable. In the parlance of our time, the Colossians to whom Paul is writing are "saved." If you disagree, ask yourself, is it possible to be reconciled to God without being saved? Is it possible to be presented holy, presented blameless, presented irreproachable before God without being saved? If the answer is no, then it is clear that Paul believes the Colossians to have been "saved."
But Paul makes it clear that they are so only contingently. This present declaration of both present and future standing before God is only true inasmuch as they remain stable in faith without shifting from the hope of the gospel. Paul believed that reconciled folks could retroactively become unreconciled based on the stability of their faith and hope. He believed that the saved could become unsaved. We can agree or disagree, but what Paul believed is clear.
So where does that leave the concept of Christian assurance? How then can we have assurance? In Christ of course! I've often thought in my mind that prayer doesn't work. Only God in Christ works. In the same way there is no assurance of salvation for the Christian. There is only assurance in God through Christ. Prayer and salvation are gifts offered by a God who alone is sure. Gifts are never sure. The giver always is.
What did the "shifting from the hope of the gospel" that Paul is concerned about look like? Was it outright denial, or just sin, or both? Maybe the key to those questions is found in Paul's statement about which gospel he fears them shifting from,
"... the gospel which you heard. This gospel has been preached in all creation under heaven."
This particular statement serves a very specific function and it's telling that this is the second time Paul has mentioned this gospel being preached in all the world in the short span of chapter one, especially in a letter known as one which appears to be combating some kind of local heresy. That this heresy was the occasion of Paul's letter to the Colossians will become clear in chapter two.
We can only speculate, and many people have, what this particular heresy might have involved, but regardless, it's likely there were multiple gospels on the market by the mid first-century. Paul is concerned that the Colossians Christians are not captivated by these other gospels but rather that they continue to hold firm to the particular one which they originally heard from Epaphras. This same gospel is endorsed by Paul and indeed is the same one that has been (past tense) preached (v. 23) and is bearing (present tense) fruit all over the world. Make no mistake: Paul is slapping an ID tag on his gospel. This is the real gospel; the catholic, apostolic gospel. This makes clear that Paul isn't warning against generic sin, per se. His is a very specific warning against shifting from a very specific gospel.
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