Smart people saying smart things

Tommy Craggs: “The Stupid Moral Panic Over Mocking Tim Tebow; Or, What Would Jesus Do About Tebowing?“

Whenever Tim Tebow takes a knee on the field and thanks God, he is engaging in a very conscious act of moral grandstanding. I write that with no judgment whatsoever. Tebow is saying, “Look at me,” just as surely as Deion Sanders doing the pigeon wing in the end zone was saying, “Look at me.” He is saying, “Look at me and gaze upon my prayerfulness,” and he is saying that because he is an evangelical Christian, and evangelical Christianity is a religion built on conspicuous faith. He is bearing witness, right there on the hashmarks. He is spiking the Gospel.

Karl Giberson holds serve: “Why Christians Need a Secular World“

I see no reason why a religious believer should regard a simple fact as somehow hostile, just because it is a so-called secular claim. The discussion of the planetary status of Pluto, or the veracity of recent claims that neutrinos are exceeding the speed of light are secular discussions, with no obvious religious significance — and certainly no anti-religious aspect.

… The division of knowledge claims into religious and secular is a simplification that works well for culture warriors eager to demolish one side or the other. Ken Ham’s Museum displays are set up to contrast “God’s Word” with “Human Reason.” But Ham knows this is too simple. Where in this organizational scheme, for example, would we put the claim that protons are heavier than electrons? It doesn’t come from “God’s Word” so it must be the product of “Human Reason.” Does this mean it is the enemy of God’s Word?

Jonathan Dudley: “Why Evangelicals Believe Weird Things“

Why is there such a disconnect between the lay evangelical community and the best evangelical scholars when it comes to science? In my book Broken Words: The Abuse of Science and Faith in American Politics, in addition to critiquing popular evangelical beliefs, I also explore the sources of this discrepancy.

Lay evangelicals evaluate the arguments made by “experts” in a manner different from many non-evangelicals. The latter will often ask: How prestigious is her academic pedigree? Is she representing the consensus of similarly credentialed experts? Insofar as I can understand her arguments, do they convince me? Lay evangelicals ask different questions: How good of a Christian is this guy? (Or, in evangelical parlance, “How is his walk with the Lord?”) How closely do his arguments line up with my understanding of the Bible? Is this guy one of us?

Amanda Marcotte: “Chasing our tails … how to stop?“

The right has figured out that “a lie + a [frakked] up idea” is an excellent way to turn a liberal into someone who says “first of all,” and for some reason, the “first of all” person has become a hated entity in our culture.

Mike Konczal: “Foreclosures, Halloween Costumes, and How the 1% Views the Law“

This view of the world has its roots in a theory of how the rules governing debt, especially bankruptcy, should function in this country. A heuristic can be used to understand it — it’s called the creditor’s bargain. In this idea, the rules should only exist to the extent that they benefit the creditor’s ability to collect money. It’s simple: if a law, custom, norm, or rule helps creditors collect when things go wrong, it is a good one. If it takes into account concerns other than creditors’ return — say, destroyed neighborhoods, whether banks follow the rules, etc. — they are worthless. …

In this world, debtors probably could challenge the legality of their foreclosures, making sure proper procedure was followed. But that’s not what the rules are meant to do. The rules are just there to benefit creditors, not debtors. It is in this world that those Halloween costumes make perfect sense. I love pointing out how passionate libertarians like Calabria have been all for the sanctity of contract when it comes to bankruptcy reforms like “cramdown,” but when it comes to the idea that all these mortgages are unsecured debt because of bank-led abuses in the chain of property records, they get angry at debtors, even though they are still holders of contracts. But again, if the law is just there to protect creditors against the difficulty of collecting on debtors, not to provide a level playing field for those with debt, it makes perfect sense.

It also makes perfect sense that creditors and bankers haven’t gone to jail, but debtors who took out a liar’s loan have gone to jail. It makes sense that elites, like former Peterson Institute CEO David Walker, want to see debtors’ prisons on the agenda while no elites talk about jail sentences for the abuses in property law. The law is there to coordinate the best interests of creditors, not provide rules and protection for debtors.

J.R. Daniel Kirk: “Jesus’ eschatology“

Eschatology is the refusal to give up on the promises of God, even when it looks like God has given up on us and on his world.

Inaugurated eschatology is the conviction that the power of the kingdom, the promised fullness of God, will burst forth and provide in rich abundance here and now, even when we cannot see with our eyes the fullness of the harvest.

Inaugurated eschatology is the summons to move out on faith, trusting that the smallest seed will sprout and bring forth a plant in which all the birds of the air can find their food.

Inaugurated eschatology is the summons to begin to feed the hungry with the little we have, trusting that the God’s kingdom economy of abundance is not constrained by the lack by which we would measure it.

Inaugurated eschatology is trusting that if we truly become servants, loving others with the self-giving love of God in Christ, that life untold will spring forth from that place of death.

Jo Hilder: “The Opposite of Love“

The older I get, the more I understand that the world, and by the world I mean the earth and all the people on it, has some fairly significant problems, and that I am one of them. I can tell you what I hate and what I’m afraid of, even though I know Christ teaches me to love, and tells me that love comes from God. I think about the pressing social issues in my part of the world and wonder at my own capacity for indifference when it comes to solving these issues, or even being part of the solution. I search for smiles. I stare into the blank expressions of the people around me in the street, and I think, surely, we are all as capable of love, even small expressions of it, small acts of kindness, as we are of indifference, of fear, of hate?

There is no opposite of love. There is love, and you do, or you do not. It’s within us to do it, all the time, to everyone. It’s how we were made. When it comes to how we were made to love, the gears work only in one direction, but at various speeds, including not at all if we so choose. They don’t go backwards. There’s no opposite to love.