Levittown: The Unsightly Beginnings of Suburbia (Books to Read No. 9)

In today's WSJ, Fergus Bordewich writes a book review of Levittown by David Kushner. The Levittowns (there were two -- one in New York, the other in Pennsylvania) were suburban communities created by Bill and Albert Levitt and mass-produced and mass-marketed to returning soldiers and their families.

They were designed to be perfect, complete communities. Unfortunately, part and parcel to 1950s suburban perfection, at least in Levittown, was racial segregation. "Buyers of Levittown homes were required to sign a statement that declared, in bold capital letters, that they would 'not permit the premises to be used or occupied by any person other than members of the Caucasian race.'"

It wasn't until 1957 that this racism went challenged. African-Americans Bill and Daisy Myers moved in, supported only by one other (white) couple, Bea and Lew Wechsler. They endured all manner of persecution, eventually vindicated by the state attorney general. From the Myers experience, Bordewich notes "that facing down segregation required from ordinary black men and woman a degree of heroism that few white Americans have ever been asked to exhibit except in war."

I am moving to the suburbs of Houston within the year, so I don't link to this review to condemn suburbia outright. Racism and suburbia are not necessary corrollaries.^[*] Rather, crowds of unregenerate people and systemic sin is the link of note. That said, it is instructive to Christians in surburbia to know the perfection for which you are striving and encouraging others to pursue. Is it one of our own devising or the one presented by Jesus Christ? Don't assume, for wide is the gate that leads to destruction, but narrow is the way to eternal life.

Read the review in full here.

^[*]In fact, to see how the table has turned in the suburban/urban wars, take care to note what "urban renewal movements" often mean in reality -- move all the poor people out of town and replace them with upper middle-class business professionals, i.e., former suburbanites.

George Carlin

I heard this line today, from the late comedian (and atheist) George Carlin:

I'm not concerned about all hell breaking loose, but that a PART of hell will break loose... it'll be much harder to detect.

Obama: You've been Rick-Rolled

I might be behind the times on this, but I just discovered it and thought it was funny.

Obama at a Saturation Point?

Peggy Noonan today in the WSJ:

A final point: In the time since his inauguration, Mr. Obama has been on every screen in the country, TV and computer, every day. He is never not on the screen. I know what his people are thinking: Put his image on the age. Imprint the era with his face. But it's already reaching saturation point. When the office is omnipresent, it is demystified. Constant exposure deflates the presidency, subtly robbing it of power and making it more common. I keep the television on a lot, and somewhere in the 1990s I realized that Bill Clinton was never not in my living room. He was always strolling onto the stage, pointing at things, laughing, talking. This is what the Obama people are doing, having the boss hog the screen. They should relax. The race is long.

Can a fallen pastor ever redeem himself?

That's the sub-headline to a Slate.com article on Ted Haggard by Patton Dodd, who was "Haggard's writer and editor for eight years." He briefly narrates the sad tale of Haggard's shifting postures of humiliation and self-justification, but closes reflecting on the limited possibilites open to fallen pastors.

The problem for people like Ted Haggard [...] is that he was in a position of public trust. Once fully lost, that trust can never be fully restored. Robert Downey Jr. can become an A-list actor, ruin himself with drugs, sober up, and become an A-list actor all over again. A businessman, a scholar, or a parent can do something similar. Why can't Haggard? Because his very public career was based on the antithesis of his failures. Downey wants only to be a damn fine actor, and he can be that no matter the content of his character. Haggard wanted to be a minister, a position that makes claims on his behavior—claims that Haggard professed to be equal to. Haggard didn't have to be a big supporter of President Bush, or outspoken against homosexuality, or any of the things that charged his public life. But he did have to have character that was consistent with the values that he so loudly espoused. His life did have to be consistent with what he preached, because preaching is based on public trust within the preacher's community of followers. Integrity is the deal-maker, hypocrisy the deal-breaker.

Most people who fail need only redeem themselves with their most immediate friends and family. They can ask forgiveness of every person they've wounded. How could Haggard ask forgiveness of 30 million—or even the 14,000 members of his former church? Sitting across from Oprah is no substitute for sitting across from those you've hurt. But he can go away quietly, do the work of atonement, and let tales of his renewed life spring up naturally [...].

Haggard can't enter a pulpit, and he shouldn't seek to be a spiritual leader, at least not for eons. He can enter a congregation somewhere, and if he wants to do that, he should, as a fellow traveler with other seekers. And that congregation should embrace him. That's what his spiritual restoration would look like.

Sobering thoughts for all those aspiring to shepherd God's people. These consequences, which Haggard seems unwilling to acknowledge, are present signals of the eternal reality that all pastor's will be called to give an account. With the double honor he cherished comes a double requirement.

May God's mercy protect us from such resounding failure.

Prepared for the Storm?

I realize tomorrow might be the storm of the season, but I think the Courier-Journal is going a little overboard for Louisville, KY.

La Policia Mexicana

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Rick Warren's Prayer

Justin Taylor posts the transcript here. Warren had an incredibly difficult task and he showed much wisdom and grace in answering it.

Oprah and Obama

Today is a day of grand, sweeping statements. I know that I commended Peggy Noonan's advice earlier to "suspend all disbelief" but this is too much:

Asked her feelings about being here, Oprah said "it's beyond the dream. We're just here feelin' it with the throngs of people. It's amazing grace personified."

If that's not messianic language, I don't know what is.

Evil in the Movies

Steven D. Greydanus has an interesting CT article on the portrayal of evil forces in movies, specifically how it is often indebted to Christian themes and images. (It's an article from July, but I only just read it although I can't remember the source for the link. Apologies.)

Among other things, Greydanus observes the prominence of hellish figures over heavenly powers.

Whatever the balance of power between good and evil in these films, there's an obvious sense in which nearly every film in the genre portrays a world in which the powers of hell seems to play a far more active and visible role in the world than the powers of heaven. Demons and other unholy things may or may not be checked or destroyed with crucifixes and the like, but seldom if ever is there any hint that angels also are active in human affairs.

How come? He surmizes this is due to the tremendous difficulty we have at creative portrayals of heaven.

Why is there so much hell and so little heaven in these movies? Partly, perhaps, it's because filmmakers simply don't know what to do with God—not just theologically, but for the sheer dramatic difficulty posed by omnipotence. It's the Superman dilemma times infinity: Against that much power, how do you make the enemy a credible threat? Even Gandalf's power was ultimately too intimidating for Peter Jackson and company; once it became clear the wizard could drive off the flying Nazgul, the filmmakers feared the enemy might seem too diminished. (This was the rationale for the problematic scene in which the Witch-King shatters Gandalf's staff.)

Another reason for the neglect of heaven is simply that heaven is harder to do. C. S. Lewis noted this point in his preface to The Screwtape Letters, in which he regretted being unable to offset Screwtape's diabolical perspective with a parallel heavenly correspondence presenting "arch-angelical advice to the patient's guardian angel." While the task of twisting his mind into a hellish perspective was for Lewis oppressive but not difficult, assuming an angelic voice seemed to him all but unachievable.

While Lewis did later achieve some success in dramatically depicting the outskirts of heaven in The Great Divorce, the general disparity of depicting heaven and hell in art and drama has been felt by many. It's not hard to see why. Beauty is more elusive an effect than grotesquerie; misery and wretchedness are far easier to inflict, and therefore to imagine and express, than joy and beatitude are to bestow or evoke.

Your thoughts?

How to Enjoy the Inauguration

Peggy Noonan offers great advice on how to enjoy the Presidential Inauguration:

What is required for full enjoyment of an inauguration, from opening prayers to speeches to marching bands is, in the great 19th-century phrase, the willing suspension of disbelief. If you don't put your skepticism aside, you will not fully absorb and experience the drama. You must allow it to be real for you. Those two young people on the stage did not really take poison and die, but Romeo and fair Juliet did, and that is the reason the audience, which knows the actors still live, says, with genuine feeling, "Oh, no!"

To believe, suspend disbelief. We have been through this before, the flags and fine speeches, the brass donkey paperweight, the glass elephant, the rise and fall of administrations, the coming and going of figures great and small. It's good to put that aside for a few days, to remove yourself from politics, partisanship and faction, to suspend your disbelief, to be grateful that the signs and symbols endure, as does the republic, and raise a toast: "To the president of the United States."

I hope I'm marked with such graciousness.

How to Not Send Embarrassing Emails

Google has a solution.

Powlison on the Counseling Revolution

I always benefit from the writing of David Powlison. Today was no exception. Here are a few excerpts from his four-part article, "Cure of Souls (and the Modern Psychotherapies)" (JBC 25:2):

Warning against the use of caricatures and heated language in legitimate disputes with other Christians:

Sneering obliterates all discussion of profound issues. God's children are rarely edified by scathing words. When we look at each group through the worst of the other's language, both groups appear shamefully disreputable. Reckless and factious words fail the test of constructive, gracious, gentle speech to which God binds us and by which He will examine us (Eph. 4:15, 29; 2 Tim. 2:24f; Matt. 7:1-5). In fact, there are some true bashers and heretics around. But provocative language and sweeping generalizations usually serve to provoke, nurture, and justify the worst tendencies in human nature, not the further outworking of our redemption. It is always good policy to interact with the best representatives of a point of view, not the worst representatives. We feel self-righteous when we post and posture next to our caricatures. We must listen, think, and argue well when we engage a thoughtful disputant.

Then, Powlison seeks to counter caricatures of biblical counseling and integrationist models of Christian counseling,

So-called psychology bashers - those who believe in the sufficiency of Scripture for generating a comprehensive counseling model - do fundamentally disbelieve the modern psychologies, taking them to be systematic counterfeits and pretenders in the final analysis. They believe tha thte Bible fiercely resists syncretism. But they still claim that something can be learned from the psychologies: wrong does not mean stupid; error must borrow elements of truth to be plausible; God often allows observant and persuasive error to expose lacunae, crudities, and distortions in His own children's thinking and practice. That Scripture is 'sufficient' to transform us never means that the Bible is 'exhaustive.' It does not mean tha thte Bible's message for us is accessed and communicated only through proof-texts. All application of Scripture demands tha twe engage in a theological and interpretive task. Good, true, faithful theology is closely grounded in the text, but often says a somewhat differnt thing than the text says, because it speaks to a different set of questions. Face-to-face ministry must use the Bible in the same way; ministry is not simply a matter of inserting proof-texts into conversation. All minsitry demands sensitivity and flexibility to the varying conditions of those to whom one ministers.

Though one might find some exceptions, most supposed psychology bashers are not anti-counseling. Most work to develop and practice loving and effective cure of souls as the alternative to secular or quasi-secular psychotherapy. The debate is not whether or not to counsel; the debate is about what sort of counsel to believe, what sort of counseling to do, what sort of cure to offer.

So-called psychoheretics - those who believe that Scripture does not intend to be sufficient for generating a comprehensive counseling model - do see an essential role for the secular psychologies. Psychological disciplines offer some sort of necessary truth; psychological professions offer some sort of necessary and valid practice. But the so-called psychoheretics still claim that the Bible must provide the final authority. That Scripture is not sufficient does not mean the Bible is irrelevant or that it ought to be subordinated to secular psychologies, but that the Bible itself mandates looking and learning from outside. The Bible itself resists biblicism.

Though one can find exceptions, most supposed psychoheretics are not out to swallow the camel of secularity and foist it on an unsuspecting church. Many work to critique the secularity of the modern psychologies and to screen out what seem to fail the test of Scripture. Why do they become psychologists? Glaring defects in the church's current understanding and practice are the main reason they expend time and effort to do hard study of human beings. In this culture, that often means to study psychology. Where else is one permitted and disciplined to gaze steadily into the complications and miseries of the soul? Where else do defective relationships come under scrutiny? Where else can one be taught to probe the details of life lived, and then to offer timely and patient aid? Theological and pastoral training typically does not look closely enough or get hands-on enough to engender case wisdom and a patiently probing counseling process.

A Wonderful Story

Read this short story of answered prayer and praise God for His tremendous kindness to His children. I'm so encouraged everytime Brandon shares it.

Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for He who promised is faithful. Hebrews 10:23