How to read: Ask is it true?
[I originally wrote this in 2015. It seems especially relevant now.]
In the Screwtape Letters, the delightfully evil demon said this to his student:
Only the learned read old books and we have now so dealt with the learned that they are of all men the least likely to acquire wisdom by doing so. We have done this by inculcating the Historical Point of View. The Historical Point of View, put briefly, means that when a learned man is presented with any statement in an ancient author, the one question he never asks is whether it is true. He asks who influenced the ancient writer, and how far the statement is consistent with what he said in other books, and what phase in the writer’s development, or in the general history of thought, it illustrates, and how it affected later writers, and how often it has been misunderstood (specially by the learned man’s own colleagues) and what the general course of criticism on it has been for the last ten years, and what is the “present state of the question.” To regard the ancient writer as a possible source of knowledge—to anticipate that what he said could possibly modify your thoughts or your behaviour—this would be rejected as unutterably simple-minded. And since we cannot deceive the whole human race all the time, it is most important thus to cut every generation off from all others; for where learning makes a free commerce between the ages there is always the danger that the characteristic errors of one may be corrected by the characteristic truths of another. - C.S. Lewis The Screwtape Letters Letter XXVII
For those who haven’t read The Screwtape Letters, it’s a book of speculative fiction by C.S. Lewis wherein he writes from the perspective of a demon attempting to help a lesser demon tempt a human being who begins to consider Christianity.
Music Monday: Andrew W.K. Edition
The first time I heard this guy, I thought he was hilarious. I remember being at K-Mart and looking on the back of his album in high school. I was shocked because so much of his music had to do with partying. I mused, “This guy’s a joke and on purpose.” Anyway, when I was in college a friend showed me this song. Note how happily it starts and sounds, but the lyrics are completely frightening and morbid. Anyway, I suppose that a good way to start your week is to get ready to die. So, you’d better get ready to die.
Translation Tuesday: Matthew 5:33-37
Text 33 Πάλιν ἠκούσατε ὅτι ἐρρέθη τοῖς ἀρχαίοις· οὐκ ἐπιορκήσεις, ἀποδώσεις δὲ τῷ κυρίῳ τοὺς ὅρκους σου. 34 ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν μὴ ὀμόσαι ὅλως· μήτε ἐν τῷ οὐρανῷ, ὅτι θρόνος ἐστὶν τοῦ θεοῦ, 35 μήτε ἐν τῇ γῇ, ὅτι ὑποπόδιόν ἐστιν τῶν ποδῶν αὐτοῦ, μήτε εἰς Ἱεροσόλυμα, ὅτι πόλις ἐστὶν τοῦ μεγάλου βασιλέως, 36 μήτε ἐν τῇ κεφαλῇ σου ὀμόσῃς, ὅτι οὐ δύνασαι μίαν τρίχα λευκὴν ποιῆσαι ἢ μέλαιναν. 37 ἔστω δὲ ὁ λόγος ὑμῶν ναὶ ναί, οὒ οὔ· τὸ δὲ περισσὸν τούτων ἐκ τοῦ πονηροῦ ἐστιν.[1]
Music Monday: Thrice and the Sands of Time
Back in the days of “the myspace” I had a roommate who was in a hard core band and a significant number of friends on myspace I met at his concerts or through another friend who went to a lot of evangelism conferences and such. I still remember when one of them messaged me and said, “You’ll really like this album by Thrice.” She was right. I’ve loved this album for a decade. My favorite song on it probably changes from year to year, but Of Dust and Nations is fantastic. The main theme is the sands of time continue to trickle through the hourglass of history and that anything that isn’t eternal that we put our trust in will be destroyed by time.
Translation Tuesday: Matthew 5:31-32
Text
31 Ἐρρέθη δέ· ὃς ἂν ἀπολύσῃ τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ, δότω αὐτῇ ἀποστάσιον. 32 ἐγὼ δὲ λέγω ὑμῖν ὅτι πᾶς ὁ ἀπολύων τὴν γυναῖκα αὐτοῦ παρεκτὸς λόγου πορνείας ποιεῖ αὐτὴν μοιχευθῆναι, καὶ ὃς ἐὰν ἀπολελυμένην γαμήσῃ, μοιχᾶται.[1]
Translation
31 Now, it was said, “If any should divorce his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce. 32 Now, I am telling you that anybody who divorces his wife, except in a matter of fornication, makes her to be an adulteress and if any should marry a woman who has acquired a divorce, he is made to commit adultery.
Music Monday: Saturday Foo Fighters Edition
I’ve always liked this song and meant to post about it Monday, but my other job started back up this week. I’ll be back into writing soon. But I think this is a challenging song about dealing with difficult relationships and trials in general. I hope you find it encouraging.
Favorite line: “I swear I’ll never give in, I refuse.”
Space Lance Saturday: Translation, Preaching, and Explanation
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.
Theology Thursday: Thoughts on Evolution
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.
- 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)."
- 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.
- 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.
Wisdom Wednesday: The Song of Solomon in 3 Layers
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:
- It doesn’t seem very spiritual with all its talk of breasts, muscly abs, and midnight visits.
- It doesn’t seem like an ode to proper courting with all its talk of not being married, yet.
- 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.
Translation Tuesday: Matthew 5:27-30
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]