Geoff's Miscellany

As a child I watched a movie called “Tekka Man: The Space Knight” with my brother. It’s a completely ridiculous piece of pop-culture. I liked it (we weren’t very cultured). Anyhow, I was reflecting on the best way to translate the word αρετε into English for the past few days and I was reminded of that show and of the Italian version.

Watch these two videos. In the first (an Italian translation): Tekka Man is a stoic soldier whose stalwart attitude toward battle leads him to destroy a supposedly invincible alien fleet single-handedly. He and his robot sidekick are strangely colored, but utterly intimidating and unstoppable.

One of the current boundary markers for Christians is the biological doctrine of evolution by (we think) natural selection. Some Christians think that others aren’t Christians if they believe it happened. Some Christians think other people are idiots for not thinking it happened.

I suggest a three step algorithm similar to my thoughts on Christianity and politics.

1. Recall what it is specifically that makes a Christian, Christian. It is not an interpretation of this or that Old Testament passage (Romans 14), it is not perfect moral behavior (1 John 1:8-2:2), it is not strict accuracy concerning theological ideas (1 Corinthians 13). Rather, it is "the obedience of faith (Romans 1:5)."
2. Look into why you accept a theory or interpretation of Scripture Many Christians do not have time to A) master the literary/historical background to Genesis or B) master the state of the field in modern biology. Thus they are at the mercy of either their church's confession of faith or what experts say. The problem with experts in either of these two fields is that they are often not writing for the normal person. But nevertheless, a human being is obligated not to trust experts, but to go with what they think is true. An expert can help you get to the truth, but in general, I would think that the average Christian will find the question to be ultimately indifferent and simply go with what sounds true based on their other beliefs of the level of trust to which they hold experts. The Christian who is a biologist or an Old Testament scholar will end up having wildly different views from the average Christian just as a physicist or engineer understands the world in ways that are opaque to the average person outside of these fields.
3. Remember your own predilections when it comes to fields outside of your realm of expertise  Based on your own interest in science (not the method, nor the practice thereof, but the expressed consensus of the field) you'll either talk to be about your point of view or not. Many people, because they don't know that the word science has three senses (the method, the actual work in the lab, and the body of knowledge produced), think that because they know some of the body of knowledge, that they are good at science. In reality, science can involve writing boring computer programs, counting seeds, or watching the same instruments measure the same things for 12 hours a day. Thus they talk about "science" in a sort of tiresome droning about how dumb people are who do not accept this or that theory. On the other hand, many people are perhaps overly skeptical of all science because they find a particular body of knowledge (think: Evo Psych) objectionable and thus think that all such science talk is anti-Christian or anti-God. I would challenge somebody in either of these two groups to take some actual science classes and determine the differences between hard sciences and social sciences, models and data, experimentation and result, and method and practice. Either way though, if Christians would go back to step one of the algorithm, they would remember that being a Christian is not a matter of science, but a matter of commitment to the risen Christ.

For any non-biologist who says, “But we need people to believe in science,” I challenge you to think of one tangible benefit besides social acceptance with very limited crowds that accepting any evolution by natural selection has achieved for you. Btw, it hasn’t helped me in any engineering, physics, or programming class I’ve taken.

One of the most confusing books in the Bible is the Song of Solomon (or Song of Songs or Canticle of Canticles). People have trouble with it for several reasons:

1. It doesn’t seem very spiritual with all its talk of breasts, muscly abs, and midnight visits.
2. It doesn’t seem like an ode to proper courting with all its talk of not being married, yet.
3. It doesn’t seem very allegorical (if the allegory is of God and Israel) with all of its use of sexually charged analogies.

Anyhow, Song of Solomon struck me as having very little to do with what I had heard from evangelical interpreters in my then brief stint as a Bible reader.  I had heard that it was certainly not an allegory, but it was a chaste example of godly romance within the bounds of marriage. But the two lovebirds don’t live together and the persistent refrain for times when they are apart is “do not awaken love before its time” (2:7, 3:5, and 8:4). But, what did strike me was that the female lead in the story was apparently a member of Solomon’s harem and that her lover was an Israelite man who was very dashing and of good repute (in 1 Kings, by the time Solomon has a harem, his reputation has gone to pot). So, I concluded that the point of the book was that Solomon’s kingship had put Israel back in bondage to Egypt and false gods and that Israel needed to repent of Solomon’s legacy and return to the true picture of Israel outlined by David’s rule or idealized in the Torah.

27 Ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐρρέθη· οὐ μοιχεύσεις. 28 ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ βλέπων γυναῖκα πρὸς τὸ ἐπιθυμῆσαι αὐτὴν ἤδη ἐμοίχευσεν αὐτὴν ἐν τῇ καρδίᾳ αὐτοῦ. 29 εἰ δὲ ὁ ὀφθαλμός σου ὁ δεξιὸς σκανδαλίζει σε, ἔξελε αὐτὸν καὶ βάλε ἀπὸ σοῦ· συμφέρει γάρ σοι ἵνα ἀπόληται ἓν τῶν μελῶν σου καὶ μὴ ὅλον τὸ σῶμά σου βληθῇ εἰς γέενναν. 30 καὶ εἰ ἡ δεξιά σου χεὶρ σκανδαλίζει σε, ἔκκοψον αὐτὴν καὶ βάλε ἀπὸ σοῦ· συμφέρει γάρ σοι ἵνα ἀπόληται ἓν τῶν μελῶν σου καὶ μὴ ὅλον τὸ σῶμά σου εἰς γέενναν ἀπέλθῃ.^[1]

I’ve been a Sunday school teacher for a long time and now I find myself in several interesting mentoring roles in my life. When I was younger I thought of my role in very robotic terms. I give knowledge, people absorb it, and then they base their own thoughts on that knowledge. Then I move on.

In reality the process is almost nothing like that. There are so many things to take into account when it comes to mentoring other Christians. Here are some chunks of Scripture and my thoughts on their application to the mentoring process:

When I was younger, I was a nerd. I played too many video games, my favorite class was computer programming, I couldn’t figure out social interactions, and felt resentful of people who could make friends well. Now, I’m happy to say that I figured it out from reading the Bible after my conversion. I have friends from a wide variety of walks of life.

I had bought into the Disney myth: just be yourself and the right people will like you for who you are.

Several years ago, I read a few volumes of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics. During that period of my life I wasn’t sleeping much and I probably read too quickly. Anyhow, I’m trying to just read 10 pages a day now. I’ll eventually finish, or maybe I won’t. Reading the Bible and doing what Jesus says is better, but Barth is useful for preachers because he helps build the habit of comparing the church’s preaching back to Jesus. In other words, he reminds pastors to go back to Jesus and stay on task.

One of the most interesting pieces of ancient literature (in my mind) is the Wisdom of Solomon. If you’re Roman Catholic or Greek Orthodox, it will appear in your Bible. If you’re Protestant some Bibles include it, some do not. It represents an attempt to express Jewish wisdom in relationship to Platonism, Aristotelianism, and Stoicism. I find the book to be intriguing and in many ways compelling. One of my favorite parts is where the author, using the voice of Solomon says this of wisdom:

Don’t You Hate It When I’m a routine guy. I love routines. Routines, in my mind, are exactly what makes spontaneity pleasant. Now, interestingly, if you love routines, spontaneity can also become a no-go. But that isn’t the topic. The topic is veering off from routine for no good reason.

Example Most mornings I wake up, do some reading, work on some writing, do my exercises, and get ready for my day.  This morning I woke up and decided I would send an email, first thing. When I checked, I had an email from my boss which he wouldn’t have expected to receive a response to for days. But, many of the questions contained in the email were interesting and pertained to something I’d been thinking about for a few months. So, I spent about an hour writing him back. Basically, what happened is that I missed my routine almost entirely. I am writing my Wisdom Wednesday post where I reflect on the Bible’s wisdom literature, but most of my routine was missed.

NA 28 21 Ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐρρέθη τοῖς ἀρχαίοις· οὐ φονεύσεις· ὃς δʼ ἂν φονεύσῃ, ἔνοχος ἔσται τῇ κρίσει. 22 ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ὀργιζόμενος τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ ἔνοχος ἔσται τῇ κρίσει· ὃς δʼ ἂν εἴπῃ τῷ ἀδελφῷ αὐτοῦ· ῥακά, ἔνοχος ἔσται τῷ συνεδρίῳ· ὃς δʼ ἂν εἴπῃ· μωρέ, ἔνοχος ἔσται εἰς τὴν γέενναν τοῦ πυρός. 23 ἐὰν οὖν προσφέρῃς τὸ δῶρόν σου ἐπὶ τὸ θυσιαστήριον κἀκεῖ μνησθῇς ὅτι ὁ ἀδελφός σου ἔχει τι κατὰ σοῦ, 24 ἄφες ἐκεῖ τὸ δῶρόν σου ἔμπροσθεν τοῦ θυσιαστηρίου καὶ ὕπαγε πρῶτον διαλλάγηθι τῷ ἀδελφῷ σου, καὶ τότε ἐλθὼν πρόσφερε τὸ δῶρόν σου. 25 ἴσθι εὐνοῶν τῷ ἀντιδίκῳ σου ταχύ, ἕως ὅτου εἶ μετʼ αὐτοῦ ἐν τῇ ὁδῷ, μήποτέ σε παραδῷ ὁ ἀντίδικος τῷ κριτῇ καὶ ὁ κριτὴς τῷ ὑπηρέτῃ καὶ εἰς φυλακὴν βληθήσῃ· 26 ἀμὴν λέγω σοι, οὐ μὴ ἐξέλθῃς ἐκεῖθεν, ἕως ἂν ἀποδῷς τὸν ἔσχατον κοδράντην.^[1]