think hard, think well

My friend and coworker, Gordon, recently sent me this e-mail:

Have I ever expressed to you how much I can’t stand the little jingle for [local Christian radio station]’s Bible teaching hour at 1pm? It contains the line "So take the time to read [the Bible], cause Jesus took the time to bleed for your sins."
Who EVER thought that that was fine to put in a jingle or really to put in ANYTHING! UGH! Not only is it cheesy as H-E-double hockey sticks, but it totally diminishes what Christ did on the cross. It’s nice of him to take the time out of his busy ministry schedule to bleed for our sins. So weird and awkward!

TheOnion recently posted, "Heckled Christian Rock Band Knows How Jesus Felt":

Bass player Kevin Clark, 26, compared Friday night’s harrowing show to "what Jesus must have braved" at the hands of Pontius Pilate, claiming that while performing he also faced a series of false accusations, including being called the "King of the D–kheads" by one crowd member.

Why do we feel the need to compare our suffering to Christ’s? Perhaps with the underlying goal of defending God’s honor, we try to attribute some sort of transcendant significance to our own suffering. Well, sometimes our pain is not part of some cosmic, Zoroastrian struggle between good and evil. Sometimes pain is discipline from God. Often pain is a result of our sin or someone elses. And sometimes, Sugar-Honey-Iced-Tea happens.

I appreciated all your encouraging/empathetic comments last week when I needed them most. I have quite a few things for which to be thankful.

• A Messiah who loved me and gave himself for me
• A wonderful wife who supports me 92% (and the other 8% are my myriad harebrained ideas, which she is right to oppose)
• A son on the way, apparently healthy so far
• A good job that pays well, with a competent, caring supervisor
• Interesting and thoughtful coworkers–friends
• A church that permits me to minister and supports my efforts
• Financial blessings, including minimal loans and steady work
• An opportunity to work on a doctorate
• Teaching possibilities
• Loving family, old and new
• The writings of N.T. Wright, Richard Hays and Adele Berlin
• Libraries full of books
• Rhythm, music

…and many more.

I thought it would be helpful for me to make a list. I tend to focus on the interesting possibilities rather than the wonderful realities. Lord, forgive me–give me gratitude.

Right now, I’m struggling through what used to be my annual, but now is now my monthly, disappointment with my options and frustration in my current situation.

It’s not a secret. My boss knows and understands. I’ve been in my pharma job for four years now, and I am grateful for the pay, benefits and time off–but even more grateful for my friends there. But this work is killing me, because it is not me. It’s put me through school, but now I am ready to move on to what I’ve been preparing for these seven years.

I’m living with my in-laws (long story), hopefully temporarily. They are wonderful, but I think all four of us agree that the situation is less than ideal. I came home from work today, and Claudia, sensing that something was wrong, asked me, “Especially difficult day at work?” I responded that I wish it had been an exceptional day, rather than an ordinary one. At least I could hope that tomorrow might be better. And, I suppose it could be–but probably not. “Same thing we do every night, Pinky….”

I donated blood at work today. [Insert corny analogy between my job and bloodletting.] I felt a little light-headed afterward, as I occasionally do, so I lay down for a few extra minutes in the blood bus. It is pathetic how happy I was about those seven fewer minutes I spent at my desk.

Recently, Corrie and I made some big decisions. We chose not to move to Dallas in order to pursue training for service with Wycliffe Bible Translators. We both feel that, though Wycliffe’s mission is worthy and important, God has called me to teach, and so I will proceed with doctoral work. (I have secured an advisor at Stellenbosch University and a topic, and I’m working on a dissertation proposal.) But this decision means that I will probably have to stick it out in my current job for as long as I work on my doctorate. With a baby on the way and a wife to support, I don’t have too much flexibility.

Everything seems like it’s out of my control. I know that I have plenty of things for which to be thankful to God, but sometimes I really wish that I were in the driver’s seat. Then at least I could have some sense of self-determination. But I suppose man’s desire for self-determination in Eden is what started all our problems…

Who has spoken and it came to pass
unless the Lord has commanded it?
Is it not from the mouth of the Most High
that good and bad come?

As something of a recovering political junkie, I’ve followed the electoral process of the United Kingdom with amusement. My friends from across the pond tell me that the Brits tend to take a more cynical perspective on politics than we Merkins do. Some may find that hard to believe, considering how low Congress’ and the President’s approval ratings are.

But perhaps the low approval ratings are the result of exalted expectations. Our politicians sweep into office with high ideals and vast promises, but fail to deliver. According to public choice theory, which was pioneered by James Buchanan and Gordon Tullock, we should expect politicians to behave rationally once elected–i.e., with an eye toward maintaining power and rewarding the special interests that got them there.

The public choice story, however, may not be the whole story. A couple of years ago I read Bryan Caplan’s excellent book, The Myth of the Rational Voter: Why Democracies Choose Bad Policies. In Caplan’s view, democracies work surprisingly well at giving majorities what they want. The problem is not that special interests hijack the electoral process and hang a huge albatross around the voters’ necks–it’s that the public’s faulty views about policy actually win.

It’s not just that the voting public is uneducated, though it is. If most people voted randomly, we would get pretty decent policies overall. If 90% of the public is ignorant but votes randomly for Candidate A or Candidate B, statistics tells us that 45% will vote A, 45% will vote B. Then the remaining 10% of informed voters would choose the better of the two.

The problem is that the public doesn’t vote randomly; it is biased toward bad policies. Caplan, an economist, focuses on four systematic public biases concerning economics:

• Anti-Market Bias — A mistrust of the free market to produce socially beneficial results. We are suspicious of people acting in the market in pure self-interest, because we realize that in our personal relationships self-interest is destructive. With the right constraints, however, market competition compels people to try to please people they otherwise wouldn’t care about.
• Make-Work Bias — A tendency to focus on employment over production. This bias shows itself in the clamor to avoid technological advancement or imports in the interest of save jobs (particularly domestic jobs). This bias is also behind the misconception that war stimulates an economy.
• Anti-Foreign Bias — A mistrust of foreign competition, either in goods or labor. This bias leads to irrational fear that imported goods will harm the domestic industry, or that immigration will undermine a nation’s economy.
• Pessimistic Bias — A belief that overall productivity and prosperity are diminishing over time.

In aspects of our lives in which the consequences of holding a false belief are great, we rationally moderate our beliefs. Caplan’s example is Dr. Smith, a surgeon who very happily believes that he is so talented he could operate quite well while intoxicated. The consequences of being wrong, however–losing his medical license, a lawsuit, criminal charges–prevent him from acting on those beliefs.

Unfortunately, the statistical insignificance of a single vote makes an individual more likely to indulge these biases in the voting booth. Since it makes no difference whether Dr. Smith votes rationally or irrationally, he chooses to indulge his mistaken beliefs about policy rather than to sacrifice his beliefs for the minuscule chance of changing policy for the better.

So, democracy works surprisingly well, giving the people what they want. The bad news is that the range of questions that are democratically decided is increasing, and therefore bad policy persists.

I have decided not to vote in November. I know that, statistically speaking, it is irrational for me to waste an hour voting. I’ve abandoned the romance and religious conviction about civic duty that I had when I turned 18. Maybe that’s wrong–I’m open to being re-converted.

Back to the UK, it looks like a hung parliament for now. As much as some UK natives complain about the supposedly outdated system, seems to make more sense than our “winner-take-all” presidency. Because the generally left- and right-wing parties failed to get a majority, the centrist Liberal Democrats now get to influence policy in ways that third parties cannot in the US presidential race or in Congress. It will be interesting to see which party eventually gets to “form a government”–choose a PM and a cabinet.

כְּעַן אֲנָה נְבֻכַדְנֶצַּר, מְשַׁבַּח וּמְרוֹמֵם וּמְהַדַּר לְמֶלֶךְ שְׁמַיָּא, דִּי כָל-מַעֲבָדוֹהִי קְשֹׁט, וְאֹרְחָתֵהּ דִּין; וְדִי מַהְלְכִין בְּגֵוָה, יָכִל לְהַשְׁפָּלָה׃

This morning my good friend, Conor, and I will finish off our second team-taught high-school Sunday school. We followed up the fall semester’s highly successful (but R-rated!) series, "The Sins of the Old Testament Saints," with this spring’s critically acclaimed, "How to Read the Bible." It’s been a wonderful semester with the leaders and the students. We have smart, inquisitive young people who are never satisfied with a simplistic answer.

I’ve made a concerted effort this year to put into practice some reading I’ve done recently on philosophies of education. I’m not sure that any single model of teaching (or really, of learning–thanks, Dr. Postman) is the absolute best; the teacher must be flexible in adapting to the needs of the students. This requires a tremendous amount of work–and really, a whole lotta love. (My brother and I were gettin’ the Led out yesterday….)

Conor and I have tried our best this semester to be to the students examples of learners, rather than teachers. A teacher is really a student who is a little further along in his or her learning than some other students.

This morning, we will wrap up the series by discussing the role of the Holy Spirit in illuminating the Scriptures. We will be reading from John 14, as well as discussing our own experiences. The students have picked apart poems, law code, narratives, synoptic texts and parables. We desire more than anything else that they read the Scriptures under the exhortation and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Thomas Turner has a particularly insightful post today on Pentecost, over at Everyday Liturgy. Here’s an excerpt:

We often forget that the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Christ. This being so, when we are filled with the Spirit we are filled with Christ: we become Christ’s presence in a dramatic and powerful way. The flaming tongues, a dramatic sign of the filling of the Spirit too often dwarfs takes the focus off of the way that the filling of the Spirit empowers people to speak God’s Word to their local communities.

I’ve just started a new blog, entitled, “Threni.” From the ‘About’ page:

This blog is a public notepad as I pursue deep academic and personal study of the biblical Book of Lamentations. Readers and comments are welcome; however, the content will not be explicitly aimed at attracting and keeping a regular readership.

I’ll still be posting as regularly as possible here at ThinkHardThinkWell.  I appreciate your continued support.

Several months back, Fred Putnam recommended to me A.G. Sertillanges’ excellent little book, The Intellectual Life: Its Spirit, Conditions and Methods. After some initial frustration over the pronunciation of this Dominican priest’s name (help with French, anyone?), I settled into what has been a very unsettling and stimulating read.

Sertillanges’ book is translated, and someday I would like to learn French and read it in the original. Sertillanges’ prose must be even more elegant and beautiful than this excellent translation. I am content for now, however, with the English.

The book contains many quotable nuggets, and I thought I would share the one that convicted me most recently:

Study has been called a prayer to truth. Now prayer, the Gospel tells us, must be uninterrupted: “We ought always to pray and not to faint” (Luke 18:1). I know that this text is capable of a modified interpretation; the sense would then be: do not spend a day, a week, any long period, without speaking to God. But our masters have taken good care not so to narrow down words of such great import; they have taken them literally, and have drawn a profound doctrine from them.

Prayer is the expression of desire; its value comes from our inward aspirations, from their tenor and their strength. Take away desire, the prayer ceases; alter it, the prayer changes; increase or diminish its intensity, the prayer soars upward or has no wings. Inversely, take away the expression while leaving the desire, and the prayer in many ways remains intact. Has a child who says nothing but looks longingly at a toy in a shop window, and then at his smiling mother not formulated the most moving prayer? And even if he had not seen the toy, is not the desire for play, innate in the child as is the thirst for movement, in the eyes of his parents a standing prayer which they grant?

We ought always to pray is the same as saying: we must always desire eternal things, the temporal things which serve the eternal, our daily bread of every kind and for every need, life in all its fullness earthly and heavenly. (pp. 69-70)

Now, Sertillanges’ point pertains to the perpetuity of study, of learning, of thought. But the point is equally valid for prayers to God as for “prayers to truth.” To “pray without ceasing” is to live with an attitude of prayer, a continual longing to know God. I confess that too often too many other longings crowd out that desire.

Brett McCracken of CT has written an excellent article about the relationship between the American Reformed folk and Tom Wright: "Wrightians and the Neo-Reformed: ‘All One in Christ Jesus.’"

(HT: Joe Hesh)