Teju Cole: “The White Savior Industrial Complex“
I disagree with the approach taken by Invisible Children in particular, and by the White Savior Industrial Complex in general, because there is much more to doing good work than “making a difference.” There is the principle of first do no harm. There is the idea that those who are being helped ought to be consulted over the matters that concern them.
… Let us begin our activism right here: with the money-driven villainy at the heart of American foreign policy. To do this would be to give up the illusion that the sentimental need to “make a difference” trumps all other considerations. What innocent heroes don’t always understand is that they play a useful role for people who have much more cynical motives. The White Savior Industrial Complex is a valve for releasing the unbearable pressures that build in a system built on pillage. We can participate in the economic destruction of Haiti over long years, but when the earthquake strikes it feels good to send $10 each to the rescue fund. I have no opposition, in principle, to such donations (I frequently make them myself), but we must do such things only with awareness of what else is involved. If we are going to interfere in the lives of others, a little due diligence is a minimum requirement.
Phil Plait: “THIS is why we invest in science. This.“
Using this technology — developed for rockets for NASA, remember — engineers designed a way to pump water more quickly and efficiently for fire suppression. The result is nothing short of astonishing:
One series of tests using empty houses at Vandenberg Air Force Base compared [this new] system with a 20-gallon-per-minute, 1,400 pound-per-square-inch (psi) discharge capability (at the pump) versus a standard 100-gallon-per-minute, 125 psi standard hand line — the kind that typically takes a few firemen to control. The standard line extinguished a set fire in a living room in 1 minute and 45 seconds using 220 gallons of water. The [new] system extinguished an identical fire in 17.3 seconds using 13.6 gallons — with a hose requiring only one person to manage.
In other words, this new system put out a fire more quickly, using less water, and — critically — with fewer firefighters needed to operate the hose. …
There is no way you could’ve predicted beforehand that investing in NASA would have led to the creation of this specific innovation in life-saving technology. But it’s a rock-solid guarantee that investing in science always leads to innovations that have far-ranging and critical benefits to our lives.
Peter Enns: “Recurring Mistakes in the Adam/Evolution Discussion” (via Internet Monk)
This issue is not about biblical authority. It’s about how the Bible is to be interpreted. It’s about hermeneutics.
It’s always about hermeneutics.
I know that in some circles “hermeneutics” is code for “let’s find a way to get out of the plain meaning of the text.” But even a so-called “plain” or “literal” reading of the Bible is a hermeneutic — an approach to interpretation.
Literalism is a hermeneutical decision (even if implicit) as much as any other approach, and so needs to be defended as much as any other. Literalism is not the default godly way to read the Bible that preserves biblical authority. It is not the “normal” way of reading the Bible that gets a free pass while all others must face the bar of judgment.
… The Bible is not just “there.” It has to be interpreted. The issue is which interpretations are more defensible than others.
To put all this another way, appealing to biblical authority does not tell you how to interpret the Bible. That requires a lot more work. It always has. “Biblical authority” is a predisposition to the text. It is not a hermeneutic.
Carol Howard Merritt: “How my faith was formed in the midst of betrayal” (via AZspot)
I’m fifteen years old. I missed church that Sunday morning, but I’m catching up with what happened in the service through my mom’s one-sided phone conversations. The instant mom hangs up the phone it rings again. She’s in a t-shirt and shorts, walking back and forth with bare feet on the cork kitchen tile, reciting assorted facts and collecting others.
The bits and pieces come together. Our pastor had an affair and confessed it in his sermon. He stood up in front of the church and let the gathered members know that he had succumbed to temptation, but he was ready to just “move on.”
The shocked congregation is not so ready to just move on. They want details. They demand to know exactly what had happened, how long, and with whom. The elders and the pastor schedule a meeting for that evening. As the sun goes down, my father leaves for the gathering of leaders.
My mother paces the kitchen a few more times. Instead of grabbing the phone again, she picks up a big basin and places our plushest guest towels inside of it. Then she yells out to the quiet house, “Car-ol! Let’s go!”
The warm Florida night swells with the sound of crickets singing and waves crashing as we drive for about a half an hour, over a bridge, from the beach to the mainland, to our pastor’s home. When we pull up to driveway, the house is dark. My determined mom still gathers the basin and towels and rings the doorbell. …
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