Fruits of our Labor

I have been encouraged and challenged in my study of the biblical languages and I thought I'd pass said encouragement around.

For an upcoming class, I've been reading a doctoral dissertation by Richard M. Davidson entitled Typology In Scripture: A study of hermeneutical "typos" structures (in the Andrews University Seminary Doctoral Dissertation Series). It is very helpful -- slowly walking through each hermeneutical use of typology by the NT authors, which happen to be some of the most difficult and consequential passages in Scripture.

While the book could be understood without access to Greek by a persistent reader, many of his supporting arguments would be lost without a minimal knowledge. Also, a critical reading of his findings would be very difficult, forcing the reader to agree with the author only for lack of adequate faculties with which to engage the argument. Overall, the book would not be as helpful to the one without any language experience.

We are blessed to have access to a wealth of good English translations, commentaries, studies, and other resources which do not require a knowledge of the original languages. I am so thankful for scholars who are committed to serving the church within its language context. But we are also blessed to have access to many more resources which do require such knowledge, like Davidson's Typology in Scripture. In just a few semesters of Greek completed by an average student, I have found opportunity to be thankful for these scholars as well. I expect greater opportunities with further study.

Such blessings are not available to every gospel minister. All the more reason to avail myself of them while I can.

Maggie Extraordinaire

My wife has a sexy intellect. I love watching her read big history books, listen to NPR and get A's on her term papers. Now, I have additional opportunity to be infatuated. She started blogging at The Ainsworth Abode. While wisdom would have you avoid any infatuation, I'm certain that reading her musings will prove edifying for you and others.

Recently, in commenting on a TIME article, she offered a Christian response to childhood obesity, one of countless contemporary expressions of American idolatry. It is indeed an epidemic and will have disastrous results in individual lives, families and the larger society, much farther than the epidemiologists suggest. Sure, there will be greater disease, death and economic hardship but what will be the spiritual cost of hundreds of thousands serving the god in their belly?

Too Much Faith in Faith

That is the title of a Wall Street Journal piece by Alan Jacobs, a professor at Wheaton College. He wonders if people put too much stock in the role of religion in current events. While many commentators differ if faith brings a net benefit or net loss to humanity, they all claim religion has a tremendous impact.

Is it, though?... I have my doubts, and they begin with personal experience. I am by most measures a pretty deeply committed Christian. I am quite active in my church; I teach at a Christian college; I have written extensively in support of Christian ideas and belief. Yet when I ask myself how much of what I do and think is driven by my religious beliefs, the honest answer is "not so much." The books I read, the food I eat, the music I listen to, my hobbies and interests, the thoughts that occupy my mind throughout the greater part of every day -- these are, if truth be told, far less indebted to my Christianity than to my status as a middle-aged, middle-class American man.

This is a striking confession, one in many ways I need to join in on. But is this lifestyle true to Scripture, which famously instructs us, "Seek first the kingdom of God" and "Whatever you do, whether you eat or drink, do all things to the glory of God" and "Take up your cross and follow me"?

That aside, Jacobs does a great job of illustrating the inconsistency in the new atheists' grumble. They are far more trusting of confessed religious sentiments than they are of other claims to altruistic motivations.

When people say that they are acting out of religious conviction, I tend to be skeptical; I tend to wonder whether they're not acting as I usually do, out of motives and impulses over which I could paint a thin religious veneer but which are really not religious at all... Most of today's leading critics of religion are remarkably trusting in these matters. Card-carrying members of the intelligentsia like Mr. Hitchens, Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris would surely be doubtful, even incredulous, if a politician who had illegally seized power claimed that his motives for doing so were purely patriotic; or if a CEO of a drug company explained a sudden drop in prices by professing her undying compassion for those unable to afford her company's products. Discerning a difference between people's professed aims and their real aims is just what intellectuals do.

A number of times, I have been faced with the task of reconciling Crusaders or Conquistadors with my Christian faith. It is one of the most frustrating ploys used by unbelievers, a magic "Get Out of Argument" free card. Jacob's argument is helpful at stripping this backhanded-complimenting ad hominem argument. And he concludes with a call to look beyond the religious claims to the deeper problem that needs answering.

Is religion powerful? I suppose it often is. After all, if people were not religious -- or, to take a Gibbonesque view of the matter, if people did not want to be thought of as so -- no one would use religious language to promote political or social or ethnic goals. That those seeking to acquire or keep power do use such language, and regularly, indicates that religion has influence. But the idea that without religion people would stop seeking power, stop manipulating, stop deceiving, is just wishful thinking of the silliest kind. Though it may seem ironic for a Christian to be saying this, it's time to talk less about the power of religion and remember instead the dark forces in all human lives that religious language is too often used to hide.

Who are we celebrating?

Okay. Imagine yourself beginning to read an article about an event in the Christian music scence. The first line of the article reads,

The night was about him.

Jesus, right? Wrong. Cue next line.

Everything from the red carpet to the ice sculpture celebrated TobyMac, the artist behind the recent Christian hits Burn for You, Made to Love and Lose My Soul.

I'm not the only one who noticed the irony. The reporter from Houston's Chronicle wondered how the limosuine, red carpet, house-size posters of self, and ice sculpture of same connects with a line from a recent song, "I don't want to gain the whole world and lose my soul."

Toby Mac credited his friends from keeping him in check and reminding him who his "first love" is. I am glad for that. But I wonder whether, after this self-celebration, his fans and the city of Houston might also need some reminding.

"He must increase, but I must decrease," John 3:30

Theodicy and the Unbeliever

The New Yorker has a well-written article by James Wood on the problem of evil and the felt inadeqaucy of many theodicies. Take some time to read through it and consider an unbeliever's response to what my philosophy professor, Ted Cabal, says is the greatest problem faced by all religions. What strikes you about his reflections? How would you counsel him?

What struck me was how I could feel my heart agreeing with him. "Yeah, life is really awful. How can such unexplainable, gratuitous evil happen? God is big -- why doesn't he just do something?" On reflection, though, Wood's perspective is fundamentally man-centered. Romans 9 clearly presents such a viewpoint as entirely flawed. It is our Creator God's sovereign prerogative to do what we wills. He will show mercy on whom he will show mercy. Period. Job ends similarly, with God asking Job "Where were you when I created the foundations of the world?"

Our pride more than our reason often finds such an answer inadequate. You can hear it in the atheists hatred for religion. It's especially palpable, as Wood points out, in the writing of former-Christians. From discussing Bart Erham's latest book God's Problem: Why We Suffer, he reflects on the incessant questioning of God, Why?!:

There is something adolescent about such complaint; I can hear it like a boy’s breaking voice in my own prose. For anti-theodicy is permanent rebellion. It is not quite atheism but wounded theism, condemned to argue ceaselessly against a God it is supposed not to believe in.

This ought to cue both reader and writer that such a complaint is not as grounded in reason as they would like.

Read the essay here.

On the Sadness of Higher Education

When I graduated with an undergraduate degree from the University of Florida, the officiator announced to us that we had now entered the "educated" class.

A few years out, I realize that I am far from earning such a title. Often, I feel like I'm playing catchup in history, philosophy, science and even English, my declared major. My English degree consisted of just 10 advanced English classes of my choosing. No survey requirements. No theory requirements. No seminars. As well, those classes available were so narrow in their focus that I left without a broad understanding of literature, but with a minor knowledge of 10 niches. Could prove useful if I ever find myself in a discussion about postcolonial or creole literature, but I'm still waiting for that cocktail party.

"On the Sadness of Higher Education" by Alan Charles Kors is an excellent essay about the present state of university education (published in The New Criterion; HT: The Wall Street Journal). He describes the transition from universities teaching critical thinking skills and broad understanding which would render such skills useful, to the university in loco parentis, indoctrinating political and social beliefs while neglecting critical thinking to support or deny those beliefs. If you have experience with large universities and colleges, they'll be much to smirk at. Here are some great lines to encourage you to read it in full:

"Those often kindly [liberal] teachers, however, do have a sense of urgent mission. Even if we put them on truth-serum, the academics who dominate the humanities and social sciences on our campuses today would state that K-12 education essentially has been one long celebration of America and the West, as if our students were intimately familiar with the Federalist Papers and had never heard of slavery or empire. Having convinced themselves that the students whom they inherit have been immersed in American and Western traditions without critical perspective—they do believe that—contemporary academics see themselves as having merely four brief years in which to demystify students, and somehow to get them to look up from their Madison and Hamilton long enough to gaze upon the darker side of American and Western life. In their view, our K-12 students know all about Aristotle, John Milton and Adam Smith, have studied for twelve years how America created bounty and integrated score after score of millions of immigrants, but have never heard of the Great Depression or segregation.

Academics, in their own minds, face an almost insoluble problem of time. How, in only four years, can they disabuse students of the notion that the capital, risk, productivity and military sacrifice of others have contributed to human dignity and to the prospects of a decent society? How can they make them understand, with only four years to do so, that capitalism and individual- ism have created cultures that are cruel, inefficient, racist, sexist and homophobic, with oppressive caste systems, mental and behavioral? How, in such a brief period, can they enlighten "minorities," including women (the majority of students), about the "internalization" of their oppression (today's equivalent of false consciousness)? How, in only eight semesters, might they use the classroom, curriculum and university in loco parentis to create a radical leadership among what they see as the victim groups of our society, and to make the heirs of successful families uneasy in the moral right of their possessions and opportunities? Given those constraints, why in the world should they complicate their awesome task by hiring anyone who disagrees with them?"

"In my fantasies, I try to imagine a way to force these academic enterprises to engage in the truth in advertising they claim to value. Let colleges and universities have the courage, if they truly believe what they say privately to themselves and to me, to put it on page one of their catalogues, fundraising letters and appeals to the state assembly: "This University believes that your sons and daughters are the racist, sexist, homophobic, Eurocentric progeny or victims of an oppressive society from which most of them receive unjust privilege. In return for tuition and massive taxpayer subsidy, we shall assign rights on a compensatory basis and undertake by coercion their moral and political enlightenment.""

And last, "The power of universities comes from their monopoly of credentials. As Richard Vedder so deeply understands in his "Going Broke by Degree," they are the only institutions allowed to separate young individuals by IQ and by the ability to complete complex tasks. They do not add value to that, except in technical fields. Recruiters do not pay premiums because of what the Ivy League or the flagship state universities teach in English, history, political science, or sociology. They hire there despite, not because of, that. Recruiters do not pay premiums because our children have been sent to multicultural centers for sensitivity training. Recruiters pay premiums for the value already there, which universities merely identify. So long as recruiters pay premiums, however, it is rational for parents who wish to gain the most options for their children to send them to the university with the most prestigious degree.

Helm on Piper and Wright

Paul Helm is adding his two-cents to Piper and Wright on Justification in a three-part post (which, in the currency he traffics with, outweigh my two cents remarkably!). Here's a provocative statement from the first entry:

I’d go so far as to maintain that the systematic theological task does not need biblical theology or any of its friends.

Curious? Go and read his helpful criticism of any narrative theology which pretends to be without systematic theology.

Excellent Religious Image Resource

I stumbled across this free database of digital resources for religious studies. It's a collaboration of theological libraries around the world, providing access to "digital images of woodcuts, photographs, slides, papyri, coins, maps, postcards, manuscripts, lithographs, sermons, shape-note tune books, and various forms of Christian art, architecture, and iconography." You can browse through subjects or search by keyword.


Since I am finishing up a paper on Revelation, I thought I'd search "Revelation." I found this 16th century engraving. No wonder John fell to the ground in horror.

Short Hairs (New Word No. 3)

See if you can figure out what LBJ means in this statement about Walt Rostow (found in WSJ book review):

"He's going to be my goddamn intellectual," the president exulted, "and I'm going to have him by his short hairs."

Yup, you got it.

The Urban Dictionary entry reads:

A euphemism for "pubic hairs," itself in this context a euphemistic metonymy for "balls". It is used mostly in expressions such as "to have someone by the short hairs," which is to say "to have someone in a very difficult or hopeless situation," equivalent to "to have someone by the balls."

I don't know about you, but I've never heard 'metonymy' and 'balls' in the same sentence.

This discovery led me to another find: a blog dedicated to one of my own favorite topics, the abuse of the word "literally." I mean, it is like literally the best blog I've ever read.

Flotilla (New Word No. 2)

A flotilla is a fleet of small ships, as opposed to a squadron of large warships. It's of Spanish origin, but still used for some divisions of the United States Coast Guard.

Justin Taylor quoted Rev. David Short, using flotilla in his explanation of the Anglican communion.

The global communion is, at it were, 38 ships that are all chained together in the historic faith that we have received in the Scriptures, that is expressed in the creeds, in the formularies of the Anglican Church. We are a flotilla of 38 ships sailing toward, say, England. Since 2002, two of the independent provinces [US and Canada] have decided that we are going to sail in a different direction, say, Australia. So the chain that binds all these provinces together is being stretched and stretched. The ships are calling on two of the ships—Canada and the US—to turn around and head in the historic direction that the church has been heading.

Apparatchik (New Word No. 1)

Word choice in writing is so important. The well-placed word can add meaning, force, irony, even assonance that it's well-meaning synonym could only dream of conjuring.

I am fortunate to read good writing on a regular basis. Since I love good writing and since word choice is a strong component to good writing, I love reading new words. I love learning new words.

By far my favorite Google search feature is it's "define:" search. It has helped me countless times. And it not only helps with basic lexical units, but also technical jargon, slang and foreign phrases more akin to encyclopedia entries, like Hegelian dialectic or oeuvre (two recent searches). Now, I know a two-minute read is no sufficient primer on philosophical schools of thought, but I make no claim of expertise. I am an amateur.

In order to beef up my post count and to share my new words with persons other than my patient wife, I'm going to start posting new words here when I learn them, including the context and definition. The context is key, because I can't learn new words in a Word-A-Day format. A setting must capture the word in my mind.

My first word is apparatchik. Karl Rove used it in a WSJ editorial about the Democratic primary:

Neither Mr. Obama nor Mrs. Clinton can win with delegates elected in primaries and caucuses. In a real irony, the Democratic Party will settle its nominee battle with the aristocratic device of superdelegates -- party apparatchiks, interest group leaders and elected officials, many of whom gained their post years ago.

Apparatchik (says Wikipedia) originated as the colloquial term given to unelected professional functionaries of the Communist Party in the Soviet republic - those who had their position because of ideology, regardless the skill set required for the job. They were, literally, "agents of the apparatus."

It can be used now (a la Karl Rove) "to describe people who cause bureaucratic bottlenecks in otherwise efficient organizations. It is also frequently used to describe individuals appointed to positions in any government on the basis of ideological or political loyalty rather than competence." (NOTE: Technically, the plural is apparatchiki, not Rove's apparatchiks. However, I think Rove's usage is better.)

Valentine's Day

It will be Valentine's Day in twenty-two minutes, a day to celebrate the Lord's goodness in providing some of his children wives.

All (three) of you who might read this know my wife, Maggie. She is wonderful in every way: beautiful, funny, intelligent, sweet, thoughtful, compassionate, kind-hearted, diligent, patient, godly, self-controlled, a good listener, a good talker, faithful... in a word, lovely. Often, on these sorts of occasions, I (like others) read over Proverbs 31. Two things jumped out at me this time.

1. "The heart of her husband trusts in her." (31:11) I am at peace when my wife is near me. Sometimes husbands can be characterized as helpless. I'll be the first to admit that, without her, that's often how I feel. Why, though? Because we trust our wives more than anyone else. My wife cares for me with the utmost detail, serving me day-in and day-out without thought to herself. There's never a taste of bitterness in her service, only love and patience. That kind of wife encourages trust. My heart trusts in her.

2. "Her husband is known in the gates, when he sits among the elders of the land." (31:23) I am noteworthy because of Maggie's excellence as a wife and woman. I imagine many conversations at church and elsewhere go something like this: "Who's Dave Ainsworth?" "You know, he's Maggie's husband." "Oh yeah?.. I love her!" People notice how great Maggie is and, in God's mercy, they notice me by association. The epitome of service and submission, her excellence redounds to my glory. May I be so humble.

This post is my small, feeble attempt to be faithful and honest and, after over 2 1/2 years of faithfulness, ensure that "her works praise her in the gates." (31:31)

Settling for Less in Marriage

Check out this fascinating article in The Atlantic Monthly. In it, Lori Gottlieb talks about the benefits of marriage not emphasized in romance movies. She speaks mostly to women, but (in my limited experience) I feel that in the church, with the present Christian emphasis on marriage and family in complementarian circles, this article can also characterize many men, possibly more than women. Her argument definitely needs to be sanctified, but the overall theme is instructive.

Here's an excerpt:

What I didn’t realize when I decided, in my 30s, to break up with boyfriends I might otherwise have ended up marrying, is that while settling seems like an enormous act of resignation when you’re looking at it from the vantage point of a single person, once you take the plunge and do it, you’ll probably be relatively content. It sounds obvious now, but I didn’t fully appreciate back then that what makes for a good marriage isn’t necessarily what makes for a good romantic relationship. Once you’re married, it’s not about whom you want to go on vacation with; it’s about whom you want to run a household with. Marriage isn’t a passion-fest; it’s more like a partnership formed to run a very small, mundane, and often boring nonprofit business. And I mean this in a good way.

I don’t mean to say that settling is ideal. I’m simply saying that it might have gotten an undeservedly bad rap. As the only single woman in my son’s mommy-and-me group, I used to listen each week to a litany of unrelenting complaints about people’s husbands and feel pretty good about my decision to hold out for the right guy, only to realize that these women wouldn’t trade places with me for a second, no matter how dull their marriages might be or how desperately they might long for a different husband. They, like me, would rather feel alone in a marriage than actually be alone, because they, like me, realize that marriage ultimately isn’t about cosmic connection—it’s about how having a teammate, even if he’s not the love of your life, is better than not having one at all.

Political Religion, 2

Here is a selection from John Henry Newman, quoted by Craig Gay in The Way of the (modern) World (referenced in my previous post):

As the traveler on serious business may be tempted to linger, while he gazes on the beauty of the prospect which opens on his way, so this well-ordered and divinely governed world, with all its blessings of sense and knowledge, may lead us to neglect those interests which will endure when itself has passed away. In truth, it promises more than it can fulfill.... And hence it is that many pursuits, in themselves honest and right, are nevertheless to be engaged in with caution, lest they seduce us; and those perhaps with special caution, which tend to the well-being of men in this life. The sciences, for instance, of good government, acquiring wealth, of preventing and relieving want, and the like, are for this reason especially dangerous; for fixing, as they do, our exertions on this world as an end, they go far to persuade us that they have no other end.