Save

December 13, 2011 By scotmcknight 13 Comments

The word of the wise is this: Save! Don’t spend to the max, save.

Who’s got some advice for us?

For many Americans, the golden years are quickly taking on a tin-like hue.

After a vicious decade of no growth for the stock market, including two 401(k)-eating bear markets and persistently sky-high unemployment, more Americans are finding themselves in their 50s and 60s with practically no money saved for retirement.

“We were in our 30s, blinked, and now we’re our parents’ age,” says Alan Tipps, a corporate jet pilot who typically earns more than $100,000 a year when he’s working. But Tipps, 52, has been laid off three times during the past four years, and says that has forced him to burn through what was in his 401(k) just to “keep the lights on” in his home in Portales, N.M. [Read more...]

Filed Under: Public Issues 13 Comments

Writers on Reading

December 13, 2011 By scotmcknight 15 Comments

From Emily Temple:

Which is your favorite quote and why?

“When I get a little money, I buy books. If any is left, I buy food and clothes.” — Erasmus

“We don’t need a list of rights and wrongs, tables of dos and don’ts: we need books, time, and silence. Thou shalt not is soon forgotten, but Once upon a time lasts forever.” — Philip Pullman

“If one reads enough books one has a fighting chance. Or better, one’s chances of survival increase with each book one reads.” — Sherman Alexie

“Reading is the sole means by which we slip, involuntarily, often helplessly, into another’s skin, another’s voice, another’s soul.” — Joyce Carol Oates

“You should never read just for “enjoyment.” Read to make yourself smarter! Less judgmental. More apt to understand your friends’ insane behavior, or better yet, your own. Pick “hard books.” Ones you have to concentrate on while reading. And for god’s sake, don’t let me ever hear you say, “I can’t read fiction. I only have time for the truth.” Fiction is the truth, fool! Ever hear of “literature”? That means fiction, too, stupid.” — John Waters

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Writing & Blogging 15 Comments

The Christmas Gospel 2

December 13, 2011 By scotmcknight 6 Comments

Advent is when we proclaim the gospel. What we proclaim is that Jesus is born, and this Jesus is the Messiah, the King. We proclaim, in other words, the King Jesus gospel at Christmas. Yesterday we pondered briefly the genealogy of Matthew, and today we look at Matthew 1:18-25 (text after the jump). What do we see here for Christmas?

First, Matthew tells up front that this Jesus is the Messiah, the word for King, and this very title evokes a long history now finally coming to fulfillment. Joseph is a Son of David, and this secures Jesus’ location — through adoption — in the Davidic lineage.

Second, Matthew tells us that God acted strangely: he chose a virgin who was impregnated supernaturally, with her engaged husband idly watching it all happen, and this conception was through the Holy Spirit. Joseph resisted because he was faithful to the Torah — and the strangeness gets deeper: now Mary has gained a reputation and Joseph has lost his.

Third, the Christmas gospel tells us more: this Messiah, this child as the result of a strange act by God, will save Israel from its sins. I’m of the view that this saving act is not simply personal, though it is that. It’s about the saving of a people by ending its exile. Jesus will liberate the people of God, and the one who told this story was Simeon in Luke 2.

Fourth, all of this is accordance with Scripture: the Christmas gospel then is the Story of Israel coming to its fulfillment in Jesus, in the big picture (Savior) and small picture (virginal conception).

Finally, the whole can now be summarized: the Story is about Jesus, and Jesus is God-with-us. Jesus is Immanuel. The Christmas gospel is a message, front to back, about Jesus.

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Advent 6 Comments

Science and Theology 1 – Science as Context (RJS)

December 13, 2011 By RJS 70 Comments

Over the course of the next month or so I am going to look at three recent books by The Rev. Dr. Polkinghorne. The first, Theology in the Context of Science, I will begin today. The other two,  Testing Scripture: A Scientist Explores the Bible and Science and Religion in Quest of Truth, will follow.

Dr. John Polkinghorne was a very successful scientist, an expert and creative theoretical physicist involved in the discovery of quarks. He was Professor of Mathematical Physics at Cambridge University before he resigned to study for the Anglican priesthood. He has since been a parish priest, Dean of the Chapel at Trinity Hall Cambridge and President of Queen’s College, Cambridge. After retirement he continues to write, think, and lecture about the interface between science and faith. I’ve read and commented on a couple of his books - Quarks, Chaos & Christianity and Belief in God in an Age of Science – in previous posts (you can find a list of posts in the Science and Faith Archive on the sidebar.)

The question asked in Theology in the Context of Science is straightforward.

Can science and the study of science and religion provide a context for theology?

We’ve entered an age where greater awareness of the world, understanding of history, and sensitivity to power structures and cultural influences has led to contextual theologies. There are streams of thought referred to as liberation theology, feminist theology, black theology, South-East Asian theology, African theology, and more. At their worst these various perspectives distort the orthodox Christian faith, throwing the Bible under the bus for the sake of a cultural correctness and situation. At their very best these various perspectives enhance our understanding of the depth and richness of the orthodox Christian faith and of the power of God’s work in his creation.

Dr. Polkinghorne suggests that science is another context for theology that can enhance and inform our Christian faith.

I believe, therefore, that the field of science and religion should be treated as another form of contextual theology, rather than its role being seen simply as that of providing useful information which can be referred to as seems necessary – usually rather briefly and often as part of an apologetic exercise. The dialog between science and religion can rightly seek to contribute to creative theological thinking itself, in complementary relationship with other forms of contextual theology. (p. xii)

Do you think science should provide a context for theology?

[Read more...]

Filed Under: Science and Faith, Theology Tagged With: 70 Comments

“God can do anything he wants!” (by David Opderbeck)

December 13, 2011 By scotmcknight 32 Comments

David Opderbeck is Professor of Law and Director of the Gibbons Institute of Law, Science & Technology at Seton Hall University Law School.  He is also a Ph.D. candidate in Philosophical Theology at the University of Nottingham. David’s post today is academic and complex, but he’s right in saying it is this distinction that was at work in the Rob Bell and hell debate with with Francis Chan. Chan’s appeal to submission to God at times sounded like nominalism. Read on, read slowly.

Nominalism, Voluntarism, and God’s Being and Will

“God can do ANYTHING he wants.”  So say Preston Sprinkle and Francis Chan in their book Erasing Hell.  It’s fair to say that this proposition is the cornerstone of Sprinkle and Chan’s theodicy of Hell.  “Won’t God get what he wants?”  So asks Rob Bell in his book Love Wins.  It’s also fair to say that this question, along with the belief that God wants everyone to be saved, is the cornerstone of Bell’s theodicy of Hell.

Both Sprinkle / Chan and Bell focus on God’s will.  But is there something missing from their theodicies? Theologically, the question concerns the relation of God’s will to His nature.  Philosophically, the question relates to whether “universal” substances exist apart from their particular instantiations (“universals”), or whether substances are merely names for particular instances of things (“nominalism”).

Consider an apple.  What is an apple?  Is this particular apple on my kitchen table one instantiation of the substance “apple” – a substance with some sort of universal metaphysical  (“beyond-“ or “above-“ physical) properties that are shared by all apples?  Or is “apple” simply a name I apply to this object before me as a result of some observable similarities with other objects (other things we also call “apple”) that have no metaphysical connection to the “apple” on my table?

What do you think?  Do nominalism and voluntarism improperly  taint our conversations about ethics, justice and theodicy?  Or, does “realism” about universals compromise God’s sovereignty?  How can we avoid speaking about God in ways that seem either to compromise His sovereign freedom or to reduce His actions to the arbitrary exercise of power? [Read more...]

Filed Under: Law 32 Comments