Cross and Culture

I attempt every year to pause amid the travel and the busy-ness and the materialistic frenzy of the Christmas season in order to consider, in a sustained and prayerful manner, what exactly it is that Christian families and churches throughout the centuries have sought to celebrate in the Christmas holiday.  It is an important spiritual discipline, I find, and this year I decided to share my thoughts.

I would love to read similar lists from others.  But the following four points summarize what Christmas means to me:

1.  In the Christmas story we read the opening lines of God’s love letter to the world.

We often speak of the work of Christ as though God were compelled, by some celestial mechanics of salvation, to do precisely this in order to save us.  A blood sacrifice was required—we say—and the only remaining solution was for Christ to become the perfect sacrifice on our behalf.  Humankind had to be ransomed—we say—from sin, death and the devil, and therefore Christ became the ransom.

Yet God was not compelled to do any of this.  God Himself is the author and arbiter of all of the rules.  There is no higher authority above God that forces him to follow regulations or fulfill requirements.  God might have annihilated humankind and started over; God might have changed the rules so that no sacrifice and no ransom were necessary.  It is not that God could not have done these things; it is that He would not, because God is changeless and just, righteous and true.  All that compels God is His own character, which is not compulsion but self-expression.

Perhaps this is a better way to think of all of God’s work, from creation to incarnation to redemption: it is an extended act of divine self-expression.

And what is expressed?  What is the character of God made manifest in this story?

Love.  Like the creation and restoration of all things, the birth, life and death of Jesus Christ are expressions of a most extraordinary divine love.  A love that never fails.  A love that seeks the lost sheep beyond every river and mountain until the lost sheep is found.  A love that will suffer and sacrifice all things on behalf of the beloved, that lays down its life for its friend.  The same love that brought us into being in the first place enters, in the village of Bethlehem in the person of Jesus Christ, into a new and more intimate relationship with us.  God so loved the world that He sent his only begotten son, so that every person who puts his faith in him will be reconciled to God and brought to live with Him forever.

2.  We celebrate in Christmas that God became a person in order to enter into a personal relationship with us.

There once was a time when I was embarrassed to speak of a “personal relationship with Jesus.”  Surrounded by professors of theology and scholars of religion who looked down on popular expressions of religious devotion, I spoke not of Jesus but of “Christ” or the “Son of God” or (better) the “Second Person of the Trinity.”

I came to realize that when evangelicals and others speak of a personal relationship with Jesus they are expressing, albeit in different language, the inward relationship that mystical theologians have enjoyed and explored throughout the centuries of the church.  To “walk and talk with Jesus” is to seek the constant indwelling of Christ, a mystical union that is not abstracted from but united with everyday life and all its activities.

That inward union, that personal relationship, is only possible because God became a person.  Our most intimate relationship with God, in other words, is only possible because of the astonishing and impossible event we celebrate at Christmas.  God entered into our condition.  God became one of us, capable of relating to us not merely as Creator and Mighty God but also as friend, as brother, as beloved.  The truck driver who imagines Jesus in the passenger seat as he rolls across the plains of Nebraska, the school teacher who asks Jesus for patience as she nears the end of the school day, the worker in the fields of Alabama who talks and jokes and argues with Jesus as he goes about his work, the crippled child who asks Jesus for the strength and courage to carry on—all of these people, whatever their education or theological sophistication, give expression to a profound theological truth that is all too often forgotten amongst the Christian literati: that ours is not only a high and mighty God who fashions the suns and measures the span of the heavens, but a God who dwells amongst the lowly, the humble, the contrite and the suffering.

It is right and fitting to “walk and talk with Jesus.”  Without Jesus, our relationship with God grows cold and abstract, the contractual relationship of a creature to its Creator.  With Jesus, the very same Jesus who entered the world in the event we celebrate at Christmas, our relationship with God is interpersonal; it is passionate and intimate, characterized not only by worship and reverence but also by tender mercy and forgiveness, love and mutual understanding.  With Jesus, we can know God and be known by God through and through.  With Jesus, we have footsteps in which to walk.  With Jesus, we have the transformative presence and power of God with us even in our most human and most painful moments.

Without Christmas, we have no Jesus.  With Christmas, with Jesus, we have all that we need and more than we could ever need: for we have Emanuel, God with us.

3.  We celebrate in Christmas that God delights in accomplishing the impossible and exceeding the hopes of men, in using the small, the weak and the foolish things of the world to humble the great, the mighty and the wise.

Christmas is, among other things, a story of the impossible.  God becomes human.  The timeless, changeless God enters into history with all its change and variation.  The mighty God who created all things humbles Himself and becomes a helpless infant.  The “reason for the season” is decidedly un-reasonable.  This is not what reason would expect.  Reason would tell us that these things are impossible.  Yet God loves to explode human conceptions of what is possible.  God loves to show us that He is greater—and nearer to us in love—than we had imagined.

Christians should forever cherish the paradoxes of Christmas, the paradoxes of the incarnation and redemption, and should never deny the many ways in which they are offensive to secular reason.  When the first generations of Christians began to tell the tale of God’s incarnation in a manger in Bethlehem, their story was profoundly offensive to the sensibilities of those around them.  The notion of a God become flesh, a God who entered the world amid the effluvium of birth, a God who came not as a conquering King or superhuman hero but as a flailing and weeping infant, as a poor carpenter and the son of a carpenter, a God who had to endure all the excretions and indignities of embodied life, and a God who was rejected and tormented and ultimately slain—Jews and Gentiles alike found this profoundly offensive to reason, precisely the opposite of what one would expect.

We should not deny the un-reason of the season.  We should not deny that the incarnation is paradoxical and the story seems impossible, even offensive to ordinary human reason.  We should celebrate it, for our faith hinges upon it.

God showed His character on Christmas.  God expressed Himself.  God showed that he outstrips human reason.  God showed that our calculations of possibility mean nothing to him.  If ours were not a God of the impossible and the unexpected, then we would still be dead in our sin.  If He were not a God who accomplished the unthinkable, who overturned the order of the world, then we would still be striving to justify ourselves before God through good works.

It is precisely because God chooses the insignificant, the weak, the foolish, the suffering and the oppressed that we have the hope we have.

4.  Finally, God showed us in Christmas what it means to love.

Christmas gifts are shared in memory of the magi and the gifts they brought from afar.  Yet the ultimate Gift-Giver in the Christmas story is God.  God shows us, in Christmas, what it means to give.  God did not give sparingly and selectively—He gave lavishly to all.  God did not require that we first demonstrate our worthiness or earn his affection—He found us while we were yet sinful and brought us grace and forgiveness.  God did not give objects and artifacts—He gave Himself, restored us to a right relationship with Him, and bade us be reconciled with one another.  God did not give from a distance—He entered into the trenches with us, into the deepest pits of our fears and struggles and sufferings, in order to be with us, to strengthen us, to edify and sactify us.

God showed us what it means to sacrifice ourselves in love for one another.  “If you love me,” Jesus told Peter, “feed my sheep.”  The compassion of God is set upon all of his creatures.  When we give ourselves, sacrifice ourselves, when we enter into the trenches with one another, when we restore broken relationships and deepen the bonds of friendship and family, when we give even to those who have wronged us or failed us or disappointed us, then we are honoring what God showed us in Christmas.  We are honoring who God, in the Christmas story, showed Himself to be.  We are honoring Christ, the one born in Bethlehem, who died on the cross of Gologtha, who rose into the heights, and who dwells even now in the least of these.

When I pause for a moment in the holiday busy-ness, these are the things that rise up in my heart.  These are the reasons I celebrate Christmas.

Hello dear readers.  Time has passed underneath the proverbial bridge.  The semester just concluding has been an extraordinarily busy one, and, whilst we were in the midst of various redesigns, I took a hiatus from the Cross and Culture blog.

My intention, now that my teaching duties for the semester are all but concluded, is to resume regular blogging — and indeed to reach out to others who might join on to a group blog.  Then, shortly thereafter, as the Religion Portals at Patheos.com are redesigned, the group blog that is Crossed and Culture will be incorporated into the very center of the new Evangelical Portal.

So, forgive my absence, but I am returning, like the prodigal son, to where I once found life and love.

The prodigal son had neglected his blogging duties.

Still working out the wrinkles.  Pardon the construction.  Testing trackback.

Now that I have settled into our new home here within the architecture of Patheos, I am resuming the Blogopticon feature, which seeks to highlight one of the most interesting recent posts at major Christian blogs.

Today I draw attention to Cloud of Witnesses, and its quotation from Nietzsche.  I quote Nietzsche below not because I believe he is correct on this point, ultimately.  I quote him because I think that, when you remove the ultimacy of the God-relationship, this is precisely what you are left with.  And I think it works as a fair summation of the mindset of the western cultural elite:

“My demand upon the philosopher is known, that he take his stand beyond good and evil and leave the illusion of moral judgment beneath himself. This demand follows from an insight which I was the first to formulate: that there are altogether no moral facts. Moral judgments agree with religious ones in believing in realities which are no realities. Morality is merely an interpretation of certain phenomena—more precisely, a misinterpretation. Moral judgments, like religious ones, belong to the stage of ignorance at which the very concept of the real and the distinction between what is real and imaginary, are still lacking; thus “truth,” at this stage, designates all sorts of things which we today call “imaginings.” Moral judgments are therefore never to be taken literally: so understood, they always contain mere absurdity.”

The Portable Nietzsche, “Twilight of the Idols,” p. 501ff

Thanks to Cloud of Witnesses for its excellent work.

One Christian’s perspective on the day’s news:

1.  STANFORD, HARVARD, AND DOGS.  We’ve got some great new material up at the Evangelical Portal now.  If you haven’t yet seen it, please check out my article “Things Fall Together,” recounting a key moment in my faith-life as an undergraduate at Stanford University.  We are having a feature on The Life and Death of Faith on Campus.  We’re currently featuring an interview of John Frame, who has gained some notoriety as “Homeless at Harvard,” since he described to spend the summer living on the streets in order to gain a better understanding of their needs and circumstances.

I also want to mention, though it’s not related to the discussion about faith on campus, that my father’s series on “Lessons My Dog Taught Me,” which was very popular with those who receive his daily “Daybreaks” meditations.  Check it out.  It’s a very enjoyable series that makes some very good points on the religious life.

Dog, gremlin, or divine teaching tool? You be the judge.

2.  CRITIQUE OF TEXT CRITICS.  I’ve mentioned Parchment and Pen before, an excellent group blog run out of Reclaiming the Mind Ministries, and with a huge audience.  Today C. Michael Patton, the President of the ministry, has a very helpful overview of “Textual Criticism in a Nutshell,” for anyone who has ever wrestled with the issue of modern biblical criticism.  Plus, while you’re there, you can contribute to the ministry, which finds itself in a financial crunch right now.  They get over 3 million hits on their websites per month, but they’re not a for-profit undertaking and they try to offer as much and charge as little as possible.  They’ve given their theological education to over 100,000 people.  Great ministry, worthwhile cause.

3.  INSURANCE DEALS.  Yesterday I noted the recent PriceWaterhouseCooper report on how the average American family will pay $4,000 more on their insurance premium under the Baucus plan.  The objectivity of the report, financed as it was by the insurance industry itself, is questionable.  This report describes the Democratic response.  What was interesting was this paragraph:

But the health insurance industry’s top lobbyist in Washington stood her ground. In a call with reporters, Karen Ignagni, president of America’s Health Insurance Plans, pointedly refused to rule out attack ads on TV featuring the study, though she said she believed the industry’s concerns could be amicably addressed.

The insurance companies have kept a surprisingly low profile throughout this discussion, largely because of deals they had cut with the Obama administration.  Presumably they considered health care reform inevitable, and sought to minimize the damage to their companies — and some companies stood to make gains, too, since millions of healthy young people who choose not to enroll would be forced to enroll.  Now, it seems, the insurance companies are angling for a better deal — if not hoping that the reform effort will collapse altogether.

Whatever the case, they certainly saved their punch for a critical moment.  Also importantly, they held their punch until the Democrats signaled that they would weaken the requirement to enroll.  A crucial vote is scheduled for today in the Senate Finance Committee.

4.  PUNCH LIKE A GIRLY-MAN?  Gideon Rachman argues in the Financial Times that Obama needs to begin “punching harder.”  The essence of his argument is this: “The president badly needs a quick victory or a lucky break. He also needs to show that, at least sometimes, he can inspire fear as well as affection. Mr Obama can charm the birds off the trees. He can inspire crowds in Berlin and committees in Oslo. But – sad to say – he also needs to show that he can pack a punch.”  Rachman points to the words of Richard Cohen in The Washington Post, in an article entitled “Does Obama Have the Backbone?“  It is natural that conservatives should call Obama a wet noodle; but it’s a problem, Rachman claims, when even literals are gaining that impression.  And Cohen writes that Obama “inspires a lot of affection but not a lot of awe. It is the latter, though, that matters most in international affairs where the greatest and most gut-wrenching tests await Obama.”

We should all expect Obama to have weaknesses.  Whatever you think of Obama, it is a fact beyond dispute that he is a member of the species homo sapiens.  He is not, whatever Evan Thomas might think, “kind of God.”  One of the weaknesses spoken of during the 2008 campaign was a certain indecisiveness.  He was Senator Present, who avoided taking strong stands on important issues.  There is certainly a measure of strength here, in that Obama does not rush into poor decisions.  But there is also an element of weakness, in my view.  Sometimes a leader does need to summon the best advice he can get on a single day and then trust his advisers, his instincts, and his moral compass.  And I do think there’s legitimacy to the conservative criticism that our non-responses to provocations from Pyongyang to Moscow to Tehran — and one might also add Beijing and Tehran — has created the impression that Obama is rather lacking in testicular fortitude.  Those governments don’t much care how virtuous a leader is; they are seeking their own interests, and, like most bullies, they will not reciprocate but will take advantage of acts of kindness.  We have not moved Russia closer to our position; Russia has moved us closer to theirs, at least in public.

When it comes to Obama’s stalled initiatives, however, in the foreign and domestic spheres, one has to ask whether the problem is really, as Rachman suggests, that Obama doesn’t punch hard enough.  The problem may be with the initiatives themselves.  Perhaps the Baucus plan is just that bad, and the American people are strongly against it.  And perhaps the problem is that Obama’s “punches” tend to be of the rhetorical variety, and no amount of rhetoric is going to convince Russia to abandon its clear interest in opposing sanctions against Iran.  If we do not sanction Iran, either Israel bombs Iran or it doesn’t.  If it doesn’t, then Russia can continue selling nuclear technology to Iran at great profit.  If Israel bombs Iran, Russian oil becomes more valuable.  Rhetoric and moral suasion has little effect on the cold calculus of national interest.

5.  BOMB BOMB IRAN.  The U.S. military has accelerated development of its new, ten-times-more-powerful bunker-busting bomb, but insists Iran has nothing to do with it.  Still, the implicit threat is there — and just before our talks are set to begin with Iran.  Make no mistake; this is no coincidence, and it is a nice, plausibly-deniable warning from the Obama administration (or at least someone in the military who wants to send a message).

6.  ALLOW ME TO AMBIGUATE MY OBFUSCATION.  Perhaps you, too have noticed how often Obama says “Let me be clear” or its variants.  It often conveys the sense of clarity even in its absence.  In any case, here is a nice, light-hearted round-up of familiar phrases from President Obama.

7.  TIME FOR A ‘CONTRACT’ ADJUSTMENT?  Republicans are contemplating a new “Contract with America.”  I proposed this in 2007, what I called a “Business Contract with America,” but no one was listening.  Surprising, isn’t it, that they shouldn’t listen to someone of no particular importance such as myself?  And some are pointing to David Petraeus as a strong potential candidate.

8.  AGAINST DOUBLE-TAXATION.  The Obama administration has quietly abandoned, at least in the short term, its intentions to tax American companies on overseas profits.  While it sounds like a good idea initially, placing a 35% tax on overseas profits, which would rest on top of the taxes of the nations in which the business is conducted, would severely damage the global competitiveness of American firms, and virtually no other western nation has taken such a measure.  Ed Morissey comments:

“Thanks to the raging debate on health care, this has not received much public attention, but corporate leaders have kept up pressure to end the plan.  They especially recoiled at the tone taken by Obama, which portrayed the normal global operation of business and taxation as some sort of fraud perpetrated by American businesses.  In response, some multinationals have looked at relocating their headquarters abroad to avoid the double taxation, taking jobs with them, while others have tried warning the White House of the political consequences of demonization.”

9.  MAX YOUR TAXES.  The argument for higher taxes on the middle classes gains momentum.

10.  INTERNATIONAL SHIPPING.  The US intercepted a German ship that was carrying weapons from Iran to Hezbollah.

11.  TODAY’S TWO-SIDES.  Charles Krauthammer on the Obama administration’s decision for “decline,” for a diminished, less hegemonic, less arrogant, and less dominant role for the US in the world.  Then, on the Left, Joe Klein’s response, which seems to include an unusual amount of personal attack.

12.  THE VILLAGE ATHEIST.  Today’s Column of the Day comes from Bill McGurn at the Wall Street Journal.  It’s entitled “God vs. Science Isn’t the Issue.”

One Christian’s perspective on the day’s news.

1.  GOING TO THE CHAPEL.  The Obama family attends church in Washington for the first time since Easter, though they have been worshiping at Evergreen Chapel when they visit Camp David.  Previous Presidents have a mixed history with attending church services in Washington, where their presence, of course, causes significant disturbance.  Yet the White House insists that the first family will soon find a church home, perhaps to answer those who doubt the sincerity of Obama’s Christianity.

2.  APOCALYPSE NO?  Hmm.  Apparently the Apocalypse is not coming on 2012.  This article is unintentionally hilarious.  Highlight

Apolinario Chile Pixtun is tired of being bombarded with frantic questions about the Mayan calendar supposedly “running out” on Dec. 21, 2012. After all, it’s not the end of the world.

Or is it?

Definitely not, the Mayan Indian elder insists. “I came back from England last year and, man, they had me fed up with this stuff.”

Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas…[M]ost archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes “predictions” from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: “Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?”

Apparently we will not be seeing the Four Horseman 3 years from now.

3.  PWC: THE NEW CBO.  The insurance industry, which has largely held its tongue until now, preferring to cut deals with the Obama administration as long as major reform seemed inevitable, seems to be perceiving a possibility that the whole effort will simply collapse.  Otherwise it’s hard to understand why they would change strategies and start hitting back.  They point to a study by PriceWaterhouseCoopers, that predicts that the Baucus plan would increase the premium for the average American family by $4,000.  This is bad news for a plan that is intended, ostensibly, to make health care more affordable.

The response of the Obama White House was, well, less than serious.  “Those guys specialize in tax shelters,” said Nancy-Ann DeParle, director of the White House Office of Health Reform. “Clearly this is not their area of expertise.”  Whether they meant that health insurance companies don’t understand health care, or accounting firms does know how to count costs, is unclear.  The response from the Republican National Committee was also uninspiring.

Still awaiting a serious conversation on health care reform.  Both sides are interested in feigning a series engagement with the other side; but neither side wants the real deal.  It’s unfortunate.  Even civil conversation is regarded as uncivil by the one side, due to their assumptions about the other side.  I will write on this soon.

4.  ENGINEERS AGAINST DRUNK DRIVING.  California has begun testing ignition devices that require those convicted of drunk driving to breathe into a pipe first, and the car will start only if there is no alcohol on their breath.

5.  BIG NO TO SHERIFF JOE.  Joe Arpaio, who has previously been profiled on this blog, is stripped of the powers once given him to enforce immigration laws in Arizona.  The article reads:

A controversial Arizona sheriff known for taking a hard line against illegal immigrants has been stripped of some of his powers in what he described as a political move by the Obama administration.

Joe Arpaio, a gruff lawman who styles himself as America’s toughest sheriff, has won acclaim from US anti-immigrant forces for his relentless pursuit of mostly Hispanic illegal immigrants in Maricopa county, Arizona, a fast-growing county of 4 million people that is home to Phoenix, the nation’s fifth largest city.

Arpaio’s aggressive tactics include the jailing of illegal immigrants in tent cities surrounded by barbed wire in the middle of Arizona’s searingly hot summers, the reduction of meal costs to 20 cents per day, the use of pink jail clothing for men, and chain gangs for women inmates.

Rather perversely, Sheriff Joe has become something of a hero to anti-illegal-immigration folks, but it seems to me that his treatment of his ‘detainees’ is morally repugnant.

6.  WTF WHITE HOUSE!?  Has an unusual amount of profanity emanated out of the Obama White House?  Never fear.  Politico is on the story.  Their answer: “Team Obama is no crasser than administrations past. It’s just that they are being quoted more accurately.”

7.  A MAJOR DISAPPOINTMENT.  As though they were reading my response to the Nobamabel, the WSJ’s MarketWatch reports: “Obama fails to win Nobel prize in economics.”  The subtitle is just as good: “Michael Moore, Timothy Geithner also passed over.”

The World Gas Conference in Buenos Aires last week was one of those events that shatter assumptions. Advances in technology for extracting gas from shale and methane beds have quickened dramatically, altering the global balance of energy faster than almost anybody expected.

Tony Hayward, BP’s chief executive, said proven natural gas reserves around the world have risen to 1.2 trillion barrels of oil equivalent, enough for 60 years’ supply – and rising fast.

The US Energy Department expects shale to meet half of US gas demand within 20 years, if not earlier. Projects are cranking up in eastern France and Poland. Exploration is under way in Australia, India and China.

Texas A&M University said US methods could increase global gas reserves by nine times to 16,000 TCF (trillion cubic feet). Almost a quarter is in China but it may lack the water resources to harness the technology given the depletion of the North China water basin.

Similar developments have been taking place in petroleum extraction; there is enough oil to last us for generations as well.  The concern there is the environmental impact.  But natural gas burns more cleanly, and advances in technology are also making oil cleaner and cleaner to burn.  These developments certainly do not remove our environmental troubles, but they are significant steps, and they largely have to do with American technological ingenuity.

9.  DOLLAR GO DO-DO?  The world may indeed be moving away from the dollar as its primary currency of reserve and exchange.  The dollar acquired its status because of its perceived stability, and certainly because of the power and reach of the United States in the world.  I don’t know the consequences of losing the dollar’s status in this way.  I assume there would be a mixture of good and bad consequences.  But it’s not exactly a vote of confidence in the American economy, is it?

10.  DEPRESSING POLANSKI.  Roman Polanski is feeling depressed a few weeks after he was caught for fleeing the country after drugged and raping a 13-year-old girl.

11.  BRAIN FREEZE.  I don’t understand why we don’t do more of this: freezing the funds of all the Iranian government and hierarchy.  As in most Middle Eastern kleptocracies, the Iranian elite have their money largely in overseas banks.  I know we are reticent to make banks the weapons of international diplomacy.  But how long do you think their intransigence would last when they have all their power players shut off from their money?

12.  A FEATHER IN HER CAP.  A substantial accomplishment by Hillary Clinton in her role as Secretary of State.  Kudos to her.  I preferred her in the 2008 Democratic primary, if only because she seemed to be less about style and more about substance.  And now she has gotten a few feathers in her cap.  How far in the polls does Obama have to fall before Clinton resigns from State and prepares for a primary run?  I don’t see it happening.  She would have to believe not only that she could beat him in a national election, but in the Democratic primaries where the true believers drive the vote — and, worse, in the early primaries which are largely driven by the radical base.  No, unless Obama’s popularity plunges much further than it already has, and not only among independents but among liberals, I think Miss Clinton will have to wait until 2016.  Hey, she’d still be younger than McCain was!

Clinton also downplayed the threat to Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, in light of Taliban attacks there.  And from what I hear from State Dept security in Pakistan, they too are of the impression that the Pakistani nukes are absolutely well secured.  And you can bet we’re keeping a close eye on them.  On the other hand, for better or worse, we continue to do nothing in response to North Korean provocations.  And finally, there appears to be some confusion as to what General McChrystal actually proposed to the Obama White House — either that, or someone wants to create the appearance of confusion so there’s more room to maneuver without appearing to contradict the General’s wishes.

13.  NOW CHAVEZ WANTS THE NOBEL.  I can’t help but find this amusing.  I can actually see some sort of argument for Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize.  There is power in rhetoric, and the popularity of his global “brand” shows the power of his appeal for unity and ‘change’ and progress (however ill-defined).  But even Hugo Chavez doesn’t think Obama deserves the Nobel.  As Reuters says, “Venezuela’s socialist leader Hugo Chavez said on Sunday that U.S. President Barack Obama had done nothing beyond wishful thinking to earn the Nobel Peace Prize.”  Chavez wrote in a column, “What has Obama done to deserve this prize? The jury put store on his hope for a nuclear arms-free world, forgetting his role in perpetuating his battalions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and his decision to install new military bases in Colombia.”  Actually, I guess it’s a good sign when Obama starts losing the favor of Leftist dictators.

14.  SMACK, RIGHT IN THE PAJAMAS.  Ouch, a White House spokesperson told liberal bloggers, and those criticizing the White House for its slowness to address the issue of gay rights, to “take off their pajamas, get dressed and realize that governing a closely divided country is complicated and difficult.”  Not exactly diplomatic.

15.  PLAYING POLITICS WITH INTELLIGENCE?  This — which claims that the Obama White House is being deliberately deceptive about the dangers of withdrawing from Afghanistan — could become a big issue, with time.  We don’t know yet whether it’s true, or whether it’s just agitation by those within the administration or the military who are fighting the trend of the discussions.  More likely, in my view, is just people giving the best possible spin to the evidence that favors their case.  Once you develop a certain view of things, you begin to notice all the evidence that supports your conclusion and give less heed to what does not.

One Christian’s perspective on the day’s news:

1.  GOSPEL FOR WHITEYS.  A bunch of whiteys won a regional gospel choir competition!  The singing is fantastic, and I love the choir leader.  I’m not too impressed with their dancing abilities, though.  Surely they could have found an African-American person to sing with them, and then just copied what she did?

embedded by Embedded Video

Looks like fun.  News report here.  I like this description:

The choir began slowly and quietly, harmonizing a gospel classic, Andrae Crouch’s “Soon and Very Soon.” Then, at the beginning of the second verse, Nickelson shed his tails, tossing his coat stage left, just as the choir picked up the tempo.

He was in the zone, employing a time-honored African-American choir director tradition of using his entire body to guide his band and singers.

He kicked his legs as he summoned certain notes. A mimed Pujols-like swing of his arms was a signal for more volume. He may have attempted a moon walk.

The crowd roared its approval. Choir members got into the spirit, too, clapping and moving their bodies to the music. When Faith Baptist finished, a standing ovation was unnecessary. Audience members were already on their feet.

The judges seemed equally amazed. “I have never seen a white brother move like that,” said Cole, speaking of Nickelson’s performance.

2.  CHASING WINDMILLS.  The CNN headline says it all: “Malawian Youth Uses Makeshift Windmills to Power Hope, Electrify Village.”

Check it out.

3.  THE MYSTERY OF THE NOBAMABEL.  The world was set abuzz when Barack Obama was named the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.  When they saw the headlines, English-speakers around the world said two words: “For what?!”  (If they didn’t use the three-word, “WTF?” variety.)  Even ardent Obama supporters seem puzzled, embarrassed, even frustrated.

Nicholas Kristof wrote that the award should wait until “after he has actually made peace somewhere” and Joe Klein called it “premature to the point of ridiculousness.”  At Washington Post’s Post-Partisan blog, Richard Cohen said, “the president seemed humbled by the news and the Norwegian committee packed for its trip to the United States, where it will appear on Dancing with the Stars”; Ruth Marcus wrote “This is ridiculous — embarrassing, even”; and David Ignatius said that “The Nobel Peace Prize award to Barack Obama seems so goofy — even if you’re a fan, you have to admit that he hasn’t really done much yet as a peacemaker.”  Even partisans at The Huffington Post admit to having gasped in disbelief when the award was announced.  Read even more skeptical commentary here, here and here, and see the people who were passed over in Obama’s favor here.

The reaction among liberals is quite interesting.  Anne Applebaum says we shouldn’t get our panties in a bunch because, after all, it’s just a silly award given out by five old Norwegians.  Mohandas Gandhi never won the award; Yassir Arafat did.  Fine, good point.  But the reaction of the liberal intelligentsia belies her point: the Left does care about the Nobel Peace Prize.  The bemusement of conservatives seems largely because they gave up the sense that the prize had any meaning when it was given to Arafat…and then Carter…and then Gore.  Indeed it’s hard to avoid the impression, and the announcement from the committee clearly suggested, that Obama was getting the award for ending the Bush era.

Probably the worst reaction was that of the Democratic National Committee, which said that those who scoff at the Nobamabel are siding with the terrorists.  Really.

To my mind, it would have been perfectly fine if Obama could have won the award simply for being the first American President of African descent.  That in itself is an extraordinary accomplishment, and it could mirror the win of Martin Luther King, Jr.  But MLK Jr led a civil rights movement in the United States that had profound repercussions around the world.  The prize is supposed to be for bringing peace between nations, and the announcement did claim that Obama had returned multilateral decision-making to the center of the international stage.  Yet Bush did nothing in his second term that was outside of the UN; he worked through UN mandates in Iraq and Afghanistan and emphasized cooperative responses to Iran and North Korea.  The announcement also cited Obama’s efforts for nuclear disarmament, but no one has disarmed or reduced an arsenal yet, and reduction of arsenals between Russia and the United States is not a particularly meaningful goal right now.  So, why not Chinese dissidents, or Iranian dissidents, or those who have worked against the wars in Africa?

Why did Obama get it?  First, because Obama has been far more conciliatory toward aggressors and systematic human-rights violators such as Russia, China, Iran and North Korea.  He has generally been less friendly toward our allies and more friendly toward our enemies.  Second, because he is popular around the world.  Third, because of the “hope” or “promise” of what he might do.  Several commentators, noting the language of the announcement, have noted that this prize is less a “well done” for concrete accomplishments than a “we’re behind you” for what Obama says he wants to achieve.  As the AP said, “Rather than recognizing concrete achievement, the 2009 prize appeared intended to support initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the I.S. role in combating climate change.”  Or as the Christian Science Monitor said, ““The Nobel Peace Prize awarded to Barack Obama appears to be an effort to spur on, rather than reward, peacemaking.”

Let’s call it a Prophetic Nobel.  Obama has won the first Prophetic Nobel.  Perhaps it will mature over the years and become something that we look back on as prescient.  Or perhaps we will look back on it as another hope that faded, another promise that never came to fulfillment, another piece of the irrational exuberance that has dominated our economies and our politics in recent years.  Time will tell.

4.  MORE OBAMAWARDS.  Rumors that Obama will also win the Nobel Prizes for economics and literature could not yet be confirmed.  He was close to the Nobel on physics, but will have to wait until next year.

5.  NOBAMABEL PONTIFICATIONS.  In response to the Nobel prize, I have two thoughts.  First, it must be nice to be Barack Obama.  To be sure, he works hard, and he is talented.  But he has opportunities and positions, money and prizes and titles lavished upon him richly.  He had no organizational experience before he was given, by Bill Ayers among others, a position overseeing the distribution of millions of dollars in grants.  He was an Illinois Senator of no great achievement when he was given the extraordinary opportunity to address the Democratic national convention in prime time.  He became a Senator with great support from Democrats and no real opposition (Alan Keyes?).  And of course he had barely been present in the Senate before he became President, with more financial support than any political figure in the history of the world.  When he had been President for a matter of mere weeks, many in the media elite were comparing him to Lincoln and Roosevelt, and Evan Thomas even likened him to God.

Second, I wonder if some liberals are bothered by this award because it seems to echo the conservative criticism, and the liberal fear, that Obama excels in style and rhetoric but not in actual achievement.  It does seem to suggest that the worldwide adulation of Obama is irrational exuberance, a fairy tale.  Peter Beinart, from the Left, says precisely this: “the Nobel Committee is actually just highlighting the gap that conservatives have long highlighted: between Obamamania as global hype and Obama’s actual accomplishments.”  Even German newspapers can’t believe how Obama is rewarded for the hype surrounding him.

Liberals who are true-believers will not want Obama rewarded until he has actually won some of the victories they want him to win, like changing our health-care system, our environmental policies and our non-engagement of enemy regimes.  We brought him to power, they will think, but we brought him to power to get things done, and we don’t want him getting satisfied until he has done them.

Obama has never been judged according to his achievements.  If the 2008 election were about achievements, can anyone dispute that John McCain would have won?  Obama is judged according his talents, his qualities and his promises — or perhaps more so, Obama is judged by the feeling of hope he evokes in the hearts of those who hear him.  In fact, the words of the Nobel committee are striking: “Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. … Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world’s attention and given its people hope for a better future. … For 108 years, the Norwegian Nobel committee has sought to stimulate precisely that international policy and those attitudes for which Obama is now the world’s leading spokesman.”  They’re obviously trying hard, in the absence of concrete achievements, to justify their award — yet they seem quite pleased with themselves, and hopeful that by selecting Obama they are helping him achieve the things that he — and they — wish to see.  Thus the Wall Street Journal calls it “the world’s first futures prize in diplomacy, with the Nobel Committee anticipating the heroic concessions that it believes Mr. Obama will make to secure treaties that will produce a new era of global serenity.”

Obama embodies the hopes and attitudes of the Nobel committee, and many more around the world.  He is rewarded, frequently and lavishly, for his ability to embody the dreams of others.  He is the world’s dream President for the post-American age.  But surely the question is whether his different “climate” and “policy” will actually achieve its aims?  For years, people such as those on the Nobel committee have called for a different way, a genuflection to international opinion and an always-open hand to despotic regimes.  But the question is: will the open hand get results, or will it get slapped away?  So far, nothing has come of this approach.  Let’s hope that changes.

6.  THE MISSING HIGH TEMPERATURES.  The BBC asks, “What Happened to Global Warming?“  I am no climate scientist and I make no claim to know the future weather.  But I’ve long insisted that there is more of a legitimate argument here than people like Al Gore say there is.  The science is not settled.  If it were settled, if our climate models had truly incorporated every important factor, then they would have predicted the global cooling trend that we have seen over the past 11 years.  It was the skeptics who predicted the cooling on the basis of solar and ocean variations.  Whether this is merely a temporary retrogression, or the other side of cyclical variation, is the point in dispute.  And strong arguments, political interests and enormous sums of money are found on both sides.

7.  WHY THEOLOGY AND ROMANCE DON’T MIX.  One blog I frequent recently posted the 20 worst theological pick-up lines.  A few of my favorites:

14. ”Your name must be grace, because you are irresistible.”

9. “The Good Book said that I might be visited by angels unaware, but something must be wrong with my interpretation, because I am perfectly aware of you.”

5. “The sight of you leaves me apophatic.”

8.  EXPLOSIVE DISCOVERY.  Of two men arrested Thursday in France on suspicion of assisting an al-Qaeda linked terror organization (al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb), one of them worked with the Large Hadron Collider at CERN (the center of European nuclear research).  Whether he sought to pass along advanced nuclear knowledge and technology, or whether he may have been involved in plotting an attack at the facility, is not immediately clear.  No one is mentioning this in the news, and it’s not likely to be involved, but there was an explosion of sorts about a week after the LHC went operational — and it has not yet recovered.  The man who worked at CERN was a contractor employed by an outside company.

We’ll here more about this one, sooner or later.

9.  CONSENSUS.  Obama is starting to claim victory on health-care reform, but he misrepresents what the Congressional Budget Office has to say.  “What is remarkable…is the unprecedented consensus that has come together behind it.”  As Jake Tapper says, “the devil is in the details.”

9.  TESTIMONY.  Interesting story of a Muslim, the son of a Hamas militant, who converted to Christianity.

And the extraordinary battle at Camp Keating, where Apache Gunships arrived and over 100 Afghan militants were killed.  The American military is a wonder to behold.

10.  ECONOMIC CONFUSION.  The stock market has been doing great — and hallelujah for that.  The problems?  Very, very high unemployment figures, especially among the young.  The greenback looks like a 98-pound weakling.  A staggering mountain of debt.  And the promise — the certainty — that taxes will soon rise amongst the middle and upper classes.  Larry Kudlow suggests a solution, and it’s nothing new.  As he points out, arguably: it’s what was attempted, successfully, by JFK, Reagan and Clinton.

It won’t happen, of course.  For at least two reasons.  First, it would require the government to cut back substantially on its expenditures, and when’s the last time that happened?  The adjustment period would be difficult, because every person cut from the government payroll is another person, at least temporarily, without a job.  And if there’s one thing you learn when you work for the state, it’s that the state takes care of its own.  Why do you think that federal and state payrolls have been adding people, quickly, when the private sector is hemorrhaging jobs?  And second, because it flies in the face of the ideology of this President and these leaders of Congress.  Those sorts of policies — strengthening the dollar while cutting taxes for businesses and cutting government expenditures — may lead to growth in certain sectors of the economy, they believe, but they also lead to a more drastic disparity between the haves and the have-nots.

This is a problem.  The essential things that make free-market capitalism work are not the things that lead to radical disparities between the rich and the poor.  First of all, every society in the developed world has had radical disparities between those with money/power and this without.  But the growth in disparity in the United States between the 1970s and the 2000s has had more to do with corporate governance and financial regulation.  It’s possible to strengthen both of those elements while also cutting taxes on businesses, curtailing government excess and strengthening the dollar.

11.  TODAY’S TWO-SIDES.  RealClearPolitics has a nice roundup of editorials on the Nobamabel.  The National Post says, “Months after Americans learned to dismiss Mr. Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign slogans as the bromides they were, Scandinavians apparently are still drinking his Kool-Aid.”  The Philadelphia Inquirer says, “That Obama was chosen for this honor only nine months into his tenure is more evidence of the impact that his election alone has already had globally. The hope that was sparked with Obama’s election in November has stirred people across the planet.”

Tim Rutten at the Los Angeles Times puts forward the most passionate argument I’ve seen yet that Obama does indeed deserve the prize, “for his words.”  Rutten claims that the right wing media was “quivering with outrage,” but the posts I read were mostly amused (like this from the National Review), and Rutten can only point to a few commenters at Red State to back up his claim.

And here is a dissenting opinion, from Benjamen Kerstein.

12.  COLUMN OF THE DAY.  I went to this piece from Thomas Edsall, entitled “Journalism Should Own its Liberalism,” expecting to be frustrated.  The subtitle suggested something different: “…And then manage it, challenge it, and account for it.”  I didn’t agree with everything Edsall said; I don’t believe that liberal journalists at major institutions are so determined to be objective that they over-compensate and become conservative in their reporting (it also runs against the grain of the rest of the article).  But I appreciated nearly everything else, and though he gave wise direction for the journalistic establishment.

And since it’s the weekend, I’ll also highlight Charles Krauthammer’s essay, “Decline is a Choice.”

I do apologize that I have been absent the past few days.  My wife and child and I were all beset with illness, and my teaching responsibilities were at flood tide.  All of that is coming to an end, however (I say as my wife nearly hacks up a lung on the couch beside me), and I will resume posting to the blog tomorrow.

Even now, however, I want to point you to an article of mine that appeared at the Evangelical Portal, entitled “Things Fall Together.”  The article begins:

I remember well the sinking sensation in the pit of my stomach as I paced up and down the center aisle of Memorial Church.  The murmuring of 300 Stanford students wafted up beneath the soaring honey-colored arches.  It was ten minutes past the hour, and the All-Campus Praise meeting had failed to launch.  The speaker had not yet appeared.  Neither had the worship leader.  And since the latter had the overhead projection sheets with the lyrics for our songs, we could not start the meeting without him.

As the organizer of the event, I was responsible.  I had worked hard to spread the word about the nature and the importance of this meeting.  I had convinced students to put aside their studies for an evening of worshiping God together, the first all-campus worship event that anyone at Stanford could remember.  Now those students were pointing at their watches and asking when the service would start.As I strode back and forth, the words drifted through my thoughts: Unless the Lord builds the house, its builders labor in vain (Psalm 127:1).  Had I sought to build this ‘house’ on my own strength?  Had I failed to pray?  Was it possible that 300 Stanford students from various groups and fellowships should arrive, eager to worship God together for the first time in recent memory — and yet God was not in it?

We are indeed still working out the kinks.  So, to read the rest, go here: http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Things-Fall-Together.html

Today I am excited to highlight one of my very favorite blogs. It is from Paul Helm, who has been a professor of the history and philosophy of religion at King’s College in London and a professor of philosophical theology at Regent College, and the blog is called Helm’s Deep. I had been hoping to introduce my readers to Helm’s Deep for quite some time, but I had to find a post that is reasonably accessible. Helm’s posts are often rather abstruse, as he writes in an academic tone on sometimes-specialized subjects.

But here we have a post on Justification. It begins thus:

“David F. Wright has this to say, in general, about why it is easy for the children of the Reformation both to read and yet to misread Augustine.

“He cites Scripture at great length, and especially the Pauline Epistles, which establish for him salvation received by grace alone – the initiative is entirely God’s, who elects whom he wills, through faith apart from works performed in advance of reception, and faith itself the gift of God. That is to say, his anti-Pelagian writings in particular are replete with Pauline-inspired discussions of this kind, which do not call upon him to clarify repeatedly that justifico basically means “to make righteous”, or to show his readers how he understands the gift of justification – of being jusitificati – in relation to this normal meaning. [1]

“I believe that it is in such general terms as these that Calvin rather guardedly appropriates Augustine on justification. Augustine sees clearly that justification (however exactly understood) is by grace alone. This is repeatedly expressed in the Anti-Pelagian writings which were such a rich resource for the Reformers in establishing their views of the ’servitude’ of the human will and the freeness and power of divine grace.

“Accurate as this may be as a view of Augustine’s position, Calvin does not quite see him this way, for there is not much evidence that he identifies Augustine as even toying with the idea of justification by faith in a declarative sense, even though, as we have seen, Augustine may have done so, perhaps committing himself to that view (without realizing it) in what he writes. After all, a person might not be as aware as others are of the logical implications of views that he holds.”

Read the rest.

Hello everyone and welcome to the new blog, Cross and Culture. I am excited to move the blog where it was always intended to be, within the architecture of the excellent Patheos website. I will continue to post here:

1. The daily Morning Reports, which provides links to news and commentaries that may be of interest to Christians and others who wish to understand and examine our society and culture religiously. The Morning Reports take a great deal of effort, and I have heard from many readers who appreciate them. Thank you for your feedback. While the word “Morning” is sometimes more of a wish than a reality (on days in which I teach, sometimes the “Morning” Report appears in the morning only for those who live in Hawaii), I try to maintain the discipline of writing them every day. So you will know that you can come here to find links to the latest news and the best commentary, always bearing in mind: how should we think about this as Christians?

2. The Blogopticon, which surveys dozens of the best Christian blogs and brings the best entry each day (either in full or in part) here for you to read.

3. Synopses and links to new articles and initiatives on the Evangelical Portal at Patheos. Thus the blog is a way of keeping track of new material and new discussions, and it will also post links to the best content on the other Portals as well.

4. Reflections on spiritual and theological matters. I have recently begun a series, for instance, on Martin Luther’s “theology of the cross.”

5. Guest bloggers. This is ultimately intended to be a group blog. For the moment, it is a one-author blog with guest bloggers. As soon as I find the right people, however, it will become a group blog with more new content appearing daily.

We are still working out some of the kinks. As soon as those are out of the way, I will resume the usual posting schedule. So please bookmark us or subscribe to the RSS feed and come back often!