Typealyzer

According to Typealyzer (for which thanks to Bishop Alan, my blog suggests it is written in the style of a Myers-Briggs INTP. This is comforting, as I am an INTP, and like it that way.

The logical and analytical type. They are especialy attuned to difficult creative and intellectual challenges and always look for something more complex to dig into. They are great at finding subtle connections between things and imagine far-reaching implications.

They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.

 

 

What is concerning to me is a) that they seem to have mis-spelt especially and b) that the person in the picture is clearly using a Mac, which I don't like as I find them harder to reconfigure...

Head First Physics

Head First Physics is a physics textbook written by a friend of mine.

It's a really helpful way into thinking about mechanics (and it is pretty much all mechanics), especially for people who aren't that good at maths. It's aimed at an American audience, but it covers mechanics roughly up to the British A-level.

Amusingly, the first and last words in the book are by me! Here they are:

If you want to learn some Physics, but you think it's too difficult, buy this book! It will probably help, and if it doesn't, you can always use it as a doorstop or hamster bedding or something.

This is a truly remarkable book. The physics is taught clearly and without too much mathematics by looking at a series of well-chosen real-life or comedy tasks. If math really doesn't turn you on, this is a great way to learn Physics! I didn't think it was possible to do some of this stuff without calculus, but Head First Physics has done it.

Secular Academia and the Bible

There's an interesting discussion around my last post. The question is essentially whether Christians should read the Bible in the same way that secular academics tell them to. So here's my perspective on that.

I think it's important for some Christians to understand how and why secular academics approach the Bible. It's important for them to be able to speak the language of secular academic study, and to learn what they can from it. I hope I've done a bit of that myself.

It's also important that they don't accept all of secular academic conclusions about the Bible without critically examining them. There is no such thing as a neutral viewpoint when it comes to human academic endeavour, especially in theology. Some of the conclusions are helpful and valid. For example, recognising that a large section of the book of Joshua is in the same genre as a lot of Ancient Near Eastern victory lists, and therefore it doesn't necessarily all need to have happened at the same time or in that order, is important and helpful for understanding the book and its relation to history.

But a large portion of secular academic study of the Bible rests on the presupposition that God does not act directly in this world, and God does not speak in the way that Jesus (for example) claims that he does. I disagree with that presupposition on philosophical and experiential grounds, and therefore I feel at liberty to disagree with those conclusions of secular academia that rest on that presupposition. There are other bad presuppositions too, but that's the biggest one.

Because of that, and because Christianity is not fundamentally about getting a first at Oxford in Theology (though it's nice when that happens, it's really not very important!) but about being in a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, the priority of the Christian minister should be to teach what is true rather than just what the academics say.

That doesn't mean that what we do is at all academically irresponsible. The quotation I cited last time can be read as answering the simple question "Given the Christian understanding of Jesus as God, and the Apostles as inspired by God's Spirit, how should we read the Old Testament?" It was written by the former professor of Old Testament and hermeneutics at Westminster Theological Seminary in Philadelphia...

As a comment for my previous post, Speaker for the Dead made this good point.

If Jesus is the Son of God, our reading of the Old Testament should center around that fact... But if a Christian can demonstrate that the NT is an inspired document quite unlike any other, he is entirely justified in using it to analyze other inspired texts.

Understanding the Old Testament

A Christian understanding of the OT should begin with what God revealed to the Apostles and what they model for us: the centrality of the death and resurrection of Christ for OT interpretation... The reality of the crucified and risen Christ is both the goal and font of Christian biblical interpretation.
Peter Enns, Apostolic Hermeneutics

Paganism

Paganism... is also a sort of permanent and natural magnetic pole of religion, and in this sense a constant threat for every religion. Christianity demands unceasing effort, continual filling of its forms with content, self-testing, and a "trial of the spirit". Any divergence between form and content, or the emergence of form as a value and goal in itself, is paganism. It is a return to natural religion, to belief in form, ceremony, and sacred objects without regard to their content and spiritual meaning. In this sense even Christian rites and sacred objects may themselves become centers of pagan veneration and may overshadow what they solely exist for: the liberating force of truth.
Alexander Schmemann, The Historical Road of Eastern Orthodoxy

Atheism

Hat tip to Mark Meynell.

God and Free Market Capitalism

There seems to be an assumption in many Christian circles, especially in the US, that God would be a free-market capitalist. (In the UK, people assume that God would be some kind of moderate socialist. Both seem to be completely wrong.) Here's a bit of Amos 8...

Hear this, you who trample the needy
and do away with the poor of the land,
saying,
"When will the New Moon be over
that we may sell grain,
and the Sabbath be ended
that we may market wheat?"—
skimping the measure,
boosting the price
and cheating with dishonest scales,
buying the poor with silver
and the needy for a pair of sandals,
selling even the sweepings with the wheat.

The LORD has sworn by the Pride of Jacob: "I will never forget anything they have done.

Amos 8:4-7, NIV

Isn't it interesting that Amos condemns in the same breath practices we would agree are immoral, like cheating with dishonest scales, and practices we would assume are perfectly legitimate, like boosting the price and looking forwards for opportunities to make more money?

Of course, I'm fairly sure that God wouldn't go down the statist redistributive route either - it quite clearly encourages laziness.

The sort of economic model God seems to be encouraging here is one driven by the priority of worship and rest (New Moons, Sabbaths) as well as hard work, and one driven more by love and concern for others (especially the poor) than by desire for profit and growth of the economy.

Quotes on Hell

My next essay is on the whole hell debate - eternal conscious torment v anihilationism and so on. Here are some quotes on hell that I've come across...

If any human beings find themselves in hell, they will have no-one but themselves to blame. If any find themselves in heaven, they will have no-one but the Lord to praise.
David Pawson

Our friends who long to get rid of the eternal punishment should cease to argue against God and instead obey God's commands while there is still time.
Augustine of Hippo

The principal danger of the 20th century will be: a religion without the Holy Spirit, Christians without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God and a heaven without a hell.
William Booth

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Richard Baxter (I was surprised by who originally said it...)

It is safer for the evangelist to have hell more frequently in his heart than on his lips.
David Pawson

To remember hell prevents our falling into hell.
John Chrysostom, Homilies on Romans

J. John - Time Management

I heard J. John speak the other day. In my past experience, he's not a great writer (though he's certainly ok), nor a sharp exegete (or indeed a good ballet dancer). This was, however, the first time I'd heard him speak, and he really impressed me. Michael Green described him as "the best evangelist in England". One thing he said really hit me. It was something like this...

Do we have enough time to do everything God has for us to do?

If so, then why don't we have enough time?

The conclusion, of course, being that we do lots of things which aren't what God has for us to do, and to manage time better we need to avoid doing those things...

Quantum of Solace

I quite like James Bond films. Cheerful, escapist, random gadgets, most people acting heavily in stereotype, etc. In some ways, The World is Not Enough and Die Another Day were the archetypal Bond films - taking all the normal devices to such extremes it became self-parodying. I certainly laughed...

Like its predecessor, Casino Royale, only more so, this is not a classic Bond film. It is a well-made action film - more Bourne than Bond, but almost all the stereotypes are gone. Many would say it is darker for that. But is it?

I think that is actually a theme running through the film - who is the darker Bond - the violent, injured, over-tired Daniel Craig, or the calm, sophisticated Sean Connery or Pierce Brosnan? At the very end of Quantum of Solace, Craig steps into the role of the calm, professional Bond, but when he does it, he has become a calm, professional killer, who does not feel for the women he seduces and unintentionally leads to their deaths, and who no longer seems motivated by revenge, because he feels nothing for his victims. Which is colder, a man who kills out of anger and revenge, or a man who feels nothing as he does it? Who is more heartless, the man who is torn apart by wanting to kill those responsible for the death of the woman he loves, or the man who doesn't care what happens to the women he sleeps with?

Maybe Craig is actually the warmest and most likeable Bond yet, even if on the surface it seems the opposite...