They Should Be Bigger Challenges Than They Are!

Biblical scholar Pete Enns had a post this morning entitled 5 Main Challenges to Staying Christian, and moving forward anyway (part 1).  He was basing his list on responses he got to a blog post that he wrote.  The five challenges to staying Christian are:

1.  Problems with the idea that the Bible is inerrant.

2.  The conflict between the Bible and science.

3.  God’s apparent absence in the midst of suffering.

4.  Christians being jerks.

5.  Christian exclusivism.

One could take issue with how I conceptualized or phrased these challenges in summarizing them, but you can read Enns’ post for yourself to see how he defines the challenges.

Someone who read the article told me that she thought that number 3 was the biggest challenge for Christians, and that a number of Christians could reconcile the other challenges in their own minds.  I found this intriguing, since 1-2 and 4-5 have been huge challenges to me in my own Christian faith.  But I think that she’s right—-there are many Christians who are not particularly phased by 1-2 and 4-5.

Let’s look at the challenges:

1.  The Bible is inerrant.  I’m surprised that this is not a bigger challenge for Christians than it is.  After all, there are plenty of television documentaries that poke holes at a conservative Christian conception of Scripture, while highlighting the views of critical scholars.  The Internet can bring people of different persuasions together into dialogue and debate, such that a conservative Christian can be exposed to the views of an atheist or a non-Christian religious Jew.  Heck, even reading the Bible itself can expose one to its different tellings of the same stories, its contradictions, and its passages that offend today’s moral sensibilities.

Why, then, is biblical inerrancy not a problem for a number of Christians?  I think there are a variety of reasons.  For one, not every Christian is aware of every challenge to biblical inerrancy.  In some cases, that’s because they are busy living their lives, but there are also cases in which they’re reading or listening to people who don’t talk much about these challenges.  I know Christians who believe that the Old Testament’s prophecies have a solid record of coming to pass, and that Jesus fulfilled a number of Old Testament prophecies.  They are not aware that there are scholars who argue that Ezekiel’s prophecies about Tyre and Egypt did not come to pass, or that the Old Testament “prophecies” (supposedly) about Jesus mean something different in their original contexts than how Christians in the New Testament (and thereafter) applied them.  Come to think of it, I wasn’t aware of these issues, either, until they were thrown in my face, and I was one who went to church and read the Bible.

Second, on the television documentaries, you have to admit that sometimes they posit scenarios that can easily strike a person as speculative or even ridiculous!  Even seminarians and scholars make fun of many of these documentaries about the Bible.  A conservative Christian can easily watch them and conclude that the challenges to Christianity must not be particularly strong.

Third, conservative Christians have their own set of experts.  You think the Bible contradicts itself or has errors?  Check out Gleason Archer’s Encyclopedia of Bible Difficulties, or read commentaries online that seek to reconcile biblical contradictions.  In a number of cases, conservative Christians go on believing because they think that their experts have come up with good answers to the objections against the Bible.  Many decide to go deeper and follow the debate further; many do not.  I wish, though, that more conservative Christians who place their faith in their experts would realize that a number of people who have problems with biblical inerrancy are well aware of what the conservative Christian experts argue and have found the arguments lacking.  I know of one conservative Christian student who was surprised to see Josh McDowell’s Evidence that Demands a Verdict on his liberal professor’s bookshelf.  So one can read Josh McDowell and walk away unconvinced?  Apparently so!

2.  The conflict between the Bible and science.  I think that much of what I said for 1 applies here.  There are a number of conservative Christians who believe that creationists have answered the challenges of evolutionists while upholding Genesis 1.  Some choose to go deeper in researching the topic; some don’t.

3.  God’s apparent absence in the midst of suffering.  This challenges the faith of many Christians, but I think that a number of Christians find ways to help them to deal with suffering: to chalk it up to God’s will or God’s plan.  The problem is that, sometimes, the burdens get to be too great, and the usual ways of dealing with suffering become less helpful.  While a number of Christians may be able to find some way to cope with (or avoid) intellectual challenges to their faith, coping with suffering is much more difficult.

4.  Christians being jerks.  Conservative Christians can just say that Christians aren’t perfect, only forgiven, or that being around jerks is a refining process that makes us more Christ-like.  Maybe they have a point, but number 4 is still a challenge to me.  For one, I wonder why many Christians are so smug about how right they are and how everyone else is wrong, when they themselves have the same flaws as others.  And, second, there are cases in which I believe that the content of Christian dogma itself encourages people to become jerks.  It’s easy to get an us vs. them mindset when reading the Bible!

5.  Christian exclusivism.  I’m surprised that this isn’t a bigger challenge than it is, since many Christians know and love non-Christians, even if they may live in an area that does not have too many people from other religions.  How can they make peace with the notion that these non-Christians will go to hell?  I think there are a variety of ways.  Some are satisfied with the idea that God is just to condemn them to hell.  Some hold out hope that their non-Christian family members, friends, and neighbors will accept Christ before they die.  Some may even adopt more inclusivistic versions of Christianity—-and these are becoming more popular (or such is my impression).

God, the Bible, and Meaning

I started Herman Wouk’s The Language God Talks: On Science and Religion.  Here, I’ll feature something that Wouk says on pages 10-11:

“…the Bible has long been waning as the core of religious upbringing, a way of life once handed from father to son down the millennia, rooted in an epic history and an encyclopedic literature; a practical guide to the insoluble mysteries, brief joys, harsh blows, and everyday workings of a human existence.  That upbringing survives here and there among our people, but most Jewish babies—-in Israel, in America, in all the diaspora—-are born today into the world view of Feynman and Gell-Mann; and a Nobel colleague of theirs, the physicist Steven Weinberg, has written lucid books in which the insoluble mysteries loom especially large, most of all the old agnostic paradox of an orderly universe without seeming purpose.”

Of course, a number of atheists will say that people can endow life with purpose, whether there is a God or not.  Perhaps the Bible reflects one attempt to provide life with purpose—-to give people a sense of mission beyond themselves, to guide them through the ups and downs of life, and to entertain them with stories with which they can identify.

Is the Bible “a practical guide to insoluble mysteries”?  I think that it contains a lot of insights that can instruct and edify people.  I wouldn’t exactly look to it for natural scientific knowledge, for my impression is that it reflects ancient Near Eastern cosmology rather than the cosmos as current scientists understand it.  But can the Bible surprise us by addressing things that some may not expect it to address, such as what’s going on in our lives, or insights of psychology?  I think so.  I like the rabbinic statement that we can turn the Torah and turn it again and be surprised when we find something new.  Texts are complex, as are readers.

If (or, according to most scientists, since) evolution is the way things are, is life without purpose?  I don’t think so.  Of course, as I said, there are atheists who believe that we can come up with our own meaning to life, even without a God.  But I don’t believe that evolution precludes God’s existence.  Perhaps God started the whole process and has watched it unfold for many years, as complex organisms have developed and as humanoids have learned and grown, and this God desires a relationship with us.

Driscoll on Nagging, Word Studies, and Complementarianism

Pastor Mark Driscoll of Mars Hill Church has made a couple of controversial statements recently.  This post linked to a sermon that he delivered on Ephesians 5:22-23.  In the sermon, Driscoll criticizes wives who nag, and he also appears to express a problem with Greek word studies, as he talks about the word “submit” in Ephesian 5:22 (“Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord”).  Driscoll says:

“‘What does that mean in the Greek, Pastor Mark?’ You can always tell a rebel­lious evan­gel­i­cal. They do word stud­ies. They try to go to the Greek and fig­ure out if it per­haps means some­thing else. I’ll just read, OK.”

The title of the blog post is “Mark Driscoll doesn’t want you to study the Bible”.  But that’s not entirely true.  Driscoll later in the sermon encourages people to go home and study their Bibles.  But Driscoll then goes on to speak against people looking for biblical scholars who would tell them what they want to hear, so they can avoid obeying God’s command.

I listened to Driscoll’s sermon.  I don’t have much of a problem with him criticizing nagging.  As Driscoll said, he criticizes husbands, too.  In most relationships, people have to work on issues for the relationship to go well, and it can be irritating to men when their wives are continually nagging them.  That doesn’t mean that all wives nag.  It just means that nagging may be something to work on in a relationship.  But I’m just saying this based on my own understanding of what Driscoll said.

On Driscoll’s comments about rebellious evangelicals who do word studies, I do find that to be anti-intellectual.  Or, if you don’t care for intellectuals and see them as snobs, let me say that I find Driscoll’s comment to be anti-learning.  How’s that?  I am leery when pastors juxtapose an emphasis on authority with a discouragement of learning.  That turns me off from organized religion.

As far as the sermon as a whole went, it had some good stuff.  Driscoll talked about love and commitment within marriage.  He said that people should love their spouse rather than wanting to get married for companionship or sex.  And he said that complementarianism does not assume that women lack minds of their own, for he affirmed that his wife has disagreed with him through the years, and that he wants for his daughters to grow up to become confident women.

The thing is, what sounds all right to me may not sound all right to a number of other people.  I was one time in a Bible study group, and the leader was a complementarian.  The leader said continually that the husband should love and serve his wife.  That sounded good to me!  Why have equality, when the husband is taking into consideration his wife’s feelings and needs and is loving and serving her?  But that didn’t sound quite right to an atheist friend of mine.  My atheist friend said that sounded like a benevolent dictatorship!

Complementarianism may sound all right to me, a man.  But suppose I were a woman?  I know there are a number of women who are complementarians, so I’m not sure what my stance would be if I were a woman.  I can picture myself leaning towards the egalitarian position.  I’m all for being cooperative with people and open to their ideas and opinions, and even to serving them.  But saying that the man has authority over me and that what he says goes (remember, this is if I were a woman, which I’m not)?  I’d have problems with that.

On Reading Atheist Blogs

This will be somewhat of a rambling post.

I was reading a blog post by Rebecca Hamilton recently, Why Don’t Christian Bashers Ever Get Tired of Themselves?, in which she criticizes atheist blogs.  I like Rebecca because (well) she reads and likes a number of my posts, but also because she is a Democrat who takes progressive stances, yet also is pro-life.  Here is a sample from the post:

“Why don’t Christian bashers ever get tired of themselves?  I don’t read atheist blogs. But I am aware that at least some of them appear to have no purpose except Christian bashing.  Based on the topics I see posted, it appears that all they do, day after day, post after post, is churn out one attack on Christ, Christianity and Christians after another. I don’t claim or want to be an expert on atheist blogs, but from what I see of these, they are negative to the point of implosion…When you get past the constant attacking and tearing down and destroying of Christianity and Christian social structures and morality, all you have is … nothing. You cannot sustain a society or a person on nihilism and negativity. It’s like trying to stay healthy by eating styrofoam.”

I’ve read enough atheist blogs over the years to know how a number of atheists would respond to that.  They’d say that they have to speak against Christianity because it is so prominent in American culture, and that its influence has been deleterious to human well-being.  They would also say that their lives are not a mess of nihilism and negativity, for they have found ways to be inspired and to live a meaningful, moral life: they just don’t feel that they have to believe in God to have those things.

I used to read atheist blogs more than I do now.  When I was more of an evangelical, I read them for a variety of reasons: because I wanted to know what sorts of people I’d be witnessing to, because I wanted to prove to myself that I could believe in God even after reading challenges to my faith, and because I enjoyed reading people’s stories.  Later on, when I was more hostile to organized religion, I read atheist blogs because I could identify with what they were saying, even though I myself never made the leap into atheism.  Organized religion, in my opinion, has quite a few people who bully others with their interpretations of the Bible.  I tended to get a sense of satisfaction when I read atheists respond to that bullying with “Oh yeah?  Says who?  How do we know that your Bible is true?  How do we know that your God is even real, for that matter?”

I still read atheist blogs sometimes, for that reason: I like reading the stories of people who have had bad experiences with organized religion, for they resonate with me.  But, nowadays, I tend to gravitate towards the blogs of religious people who have problems with organized religion, yet are still pursuing some spiritual path.  It’s not because I agree with them more than I do with the atheists.  Actually, when liberal or moderate Christians seek to preserve their faith amidst the challenges to it, their attempts strike me as rather contorted, to be honest.  I can somewhat understand why atheists respond to the challenges to the Christian faith by simply repudiating Christianity altogether!  Maybe the Bible reflects the negative elements of its historical contexts and has contradictions within it because it was written and put together by human beings, rather than being some way that God is trying to speak to us!  I’m not saying that I’ve taken that step in my own belief-system.  I’m just saying that atheism appears to me to be the most reasonable response to the problems in the Bible and in Christianity, at least when I look at how a number of Christians (conservative and liberal) have addressed those problems.

But I don’t go the atheist route for the reason that I believe that there very well could be a supernatural.  People tell stories about it.  I know that many atheists express problems with anecdotal evidence.  Fine.  I’m not really trying to persuade them to believe the same way that I do, to tell you the truth.  But, in my eyes, one way that we learn about real life is by listening to people’s experiences.  People tell about their experiences with the supernatural, so I don’t rule the supernatural out.

I’ll also add that I, like Rebecca, see value in not being negative on a continual basis.  I need something positive in my life.  I can only read so much bashing of Christianity, or Republicans, or Democrats.  There is a place for criticism.  There are injustices in the world that should be criticized.  Atheist bloggers have a point in saying that there are problems that religion itself has perpetrated that should be criticized.  But criticizing day-in and day-out?  I don’t want to do that.  But I can’t tell others what to do.

Anyway, I’ve probably managed to offend more than one person in this post, while trying not to offend anybody!  That often happens!

Psalm 107

For my weekly quiet time this week, I read and studied Psalm 107.

To be honest, this is my favorite Psalm of all of the Psalms that I have read and studied so far.  Why?  Because I love its concrete examples of God’s deliverance of people.  Psalm 107 mentions four scenarios.  First, there are those who are lost, hungry, and tired in the desert, and God leads them to an inhabited city when they call out to him.  Second, there are those who are forgotten in a dark prison, in iron bonds that are extremely difficult to break.  (I draw here, not only from Psalm 107, but also from Leslie Allen’s commentary, as well as the Intervarsity Press Bible Background Commentary.)  But they call on God, who breaks their shackles and brings them out of the darkness.  Third, there are those who are sick, so sick that they do not even want to eat, but they cry out to God, and God heals them.  And fourth, there are those who are on a sea voyage and a storm arises and threatens their lives, but they cry out to God, who stills the storm and brings them safe and sound to their destination.

In some (if not all) cases, these people in Psalm 107 are suffering on account of their sins.  This is explicitly said to be the case with the prisoners and the sick people.  It is not said explicitly about the wanderers in the desert, and yet vv 33-34 say that God turns fruitful places into deserts on account of the wickedness of the inhabitants, and so sin may somehow be behind the wanderers’ difficulty, as well.  Regarding the seafarers, it is not explicitly said that their suffering was due to their sins, but there are scholars who associate that part of Psalm 107 with the story of Jonah, who disobeyed God, and this view occurs within the history of biblical interpretation.

But, even if the people were suffering on account of their sins, God delivered them when they called out to him.  And they then appeared before the assembly of the elders and praised God, according to v 32 .  I liked how the orthodox Jewish Artscroll commentary handled v 32: Israelites were to demonstrate a renewed and increased commitment to the Torah after their deliverance by reciting the Thanksgiving Blessing before at least two Torah scholars (who are equated with the elders of v 32).  The Artscroll cites Babylonian Talmud Berachot 54b and Samson Raphael Hirsch.  When God delivers people, that is an opportunity for them to renew their commitment to God and God’s ways.  I think of what Jesus told a man he had healed in John 5:14: “Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.”

Psalm 107 also makes the point that God is in the business of delivering people, even if they have sinned.  V 3 affirms that God gathered the redeemed from the east, the west, the north, and the sea.  (There is debate about the word “yam”, sea, in v 3.  Why does v 3 mention yam after it has already referred to the west, when yam in the Hebrew Bible often means the west when it is used to refer to a direction, since the Mediterranean Sea was west of Israel?  Some say that yam in v 3 should be emended to yamin, which can mean “south”.  Others say that the yam in v 3 refers to the Red Sea, which is south of Israel.  Another view is that we should just interpret it as the “sea.”  John Jarick, in an article that he wrote for the April 2, 1997 Catholic Biblical Quarterly, contends that v 3 corresponds with the four scenarios of Psalm 107, and he bases this argument on passages in the Hebrew Bible.  For Jarick, the east corresponds with the desert, for the sun rising from the east and the east wind bring heat.  The west corresponds with the prisoner in darkness, for the west is where the sun sets, resulting in darkness.  The north pertains to the sick people, for the north is a place from which invaders and pestilence come.  And the sea corresponds with the seafarers.)  That refers to the exiles, whom God returned to Israel.  And vv 35-41 affirm that God replenishes the desert, rescues the oppressed, brings down the princes, and lifts up the poor.  This may be an eschatological expectation, for v 42 says that the righteous will see this and rejoice.  And yet, has not God done these sorts of things throughout history, even though there appear to be times when God is more hidden?

Some will argue that there are times when God does not answer cries for deliverance, and one view is that this is because God does not exist.  Indeed, there are people who die from thirst and heat-exhaustion while wandering in the desert, who rot in prison, who die from illness, and who perish at sea, and some of them (perhaps even a number of them) could be characterized as godly people.  But there are times when I wonder if my own resources are adequate, and I feel desperate enough to cry out to God—-not to absolve myself of responsibility, but because I need a breakthrough as I try to do what I can.  Consequently, I appreciate Psalm 107 for capturing and expressing a sense of desperation.

Psalm 102

For my weekly quiet time this week, I will blog about Psalm 102.  I have three items.

1.  The Psalmist talks about his personal depression, which appears to be leading him to physical sickness.  The Psalmist is lonely, and he is mocked by his enemies.  And yet, Psalm 102 goes beyond the Psalmist’s personal suffering and talks about God’s restoration of Zion, which entails God hearing the destitute and the nations fearing the LORD.  What do these two themes have to do with one another?  There have been different suggestions: that the Psalmist’s personal suffering was misunderstood as a metaphor for the suffering of the nation, and thus the part about God restoring Zion was added; that two Psalms have been mixed together (I think that I encountered that view, but I may be mistaken); that the Psalmist moves from thinking about his own problems to contemplating God’s renewal of Zion; and that the Psalmist is an exile who is describing his own problems as an exile, as well as the problems of his exiled nation (as Lamentations 3 focuses on the suffering individual, amidst a book that is about national suffering).

I think that the last solution makes the most sense.  And yet, I find it interesting that the superscription says (in the KJV), “A Prayer of the afflicted, when he is overwhelmed, and poureth out his complaint before the LORD.”  It’s like Psalm 102 was intended to be a Psalm for any afflicted person, not just one who was suffering exile.  But perhaps the idea behind the superscription is that the Psalmist believes that anyone who is suffering can hope that God’s restoration of Zion will take care of one’s own problems—-the same way that there are many Christians today who look to the Second Coming of Christ as a time when Christ will end or restrain evil and suffering.  Or maybe the Psalmist is trying to comfort himself with the idea that, if God will restore Zion, then God is one who restores in general and thus will take pity on the Psalmist amidst his personal affliction.  Similarly, many Christians today look to God’s love to Israel in the Hebrew Bible to convince themselves that God loves them personally.  They believe that God demonstrated to Israel God’s character as one who is unconditionally loving, and that Christians can assure themselves that God is unconditionally loving to them, too.

2.  Another issue that I was thinking about when reading Psalm 102 was time.  We see short time and long time in Psalm 102.  In terms of short time, the Psalmist hopes that his deliverance will come soon.  He may even believe that God is already in the process of redeeming his nation, and yet God has not completed that process, for vv 13-22 contain verbs with perfect and imperfect tenses (but the KJV translates many of the perfects in the future tense).  Erhard Gerstenberger dates Psalm 102 to Israel’s post-exilic period, a time when a number of Israelites were in their land because they had returned from exile, but they did not feel entirely redeemed, for they still had to deal with enemies and foreign powers.

In terms of long time, the Psalmist takes comfort in God’s eternity, perhaps because God’s eternity is assurance that God’s plans will succeed.  The Psalmist also wants to preserve a message for future people, presumably about God’s goodness, and, while the Psalmist fears in v 14 that God has shortened his (the Psalmist’s) days, he affirms in v 28 that the children of God’s servants will continue.  According to a note in the Jewish Study Bible, the Psalmist has doubts that he will live to see Zion’s restoration, but he hopes that his children will see it.

The Psalmist may not have believed in a personal resurrection, and so I have to admire him for thinking about the well-being of future generations, even though he may have felt that he would probably die prematurely and thus not see the restoration.  I can’t say that I am at that place spiritually, but people back then did have more of a communal mindset.  Sometimes, though, I think that it is a good idea for me to turn my mind away from myself and onto God’s long-term cosmic plans.

3.  I listened to a good sermon on loneliness, which interacted with Psalm 102.  See here.  It was by Michael Phillips of Grace Baptist Church in Fremont, California.  I was in a fairly good (or at least placid) mood when I listened to that sermon, otherwise I probably would have been defensive and angry by some of the things that the preacher was saying.  Overall, though, I thought that he had some thought-provoking insights.  He said that trying to fit in and failing is better than not trying at all, for the latter leads to loneliness.  And he also said that we should look at ourselves to see where we may be at fault—-are we unfriendly, for example? I’d say that these are good general guidelines.  Speaking for myself, though, I don’t think I’m entirely convinced that being with people is better than being alone, for being around people can be stressful, plus I can get my feelings hurt.  And yet, like most people, I don’t want to be lonely, for I want to be loved, valued, and affirmed, and maybe even to love, value, and affirm others.  It’s a Catch-22.  One wants affirmation, but one doesn’t necessarily get that around people.  And yet, one doesn’t get it when one is not around people.

Change, or Just Playing for Another Team?

Carson Clark of the blog “Musings of a Hardline Moderate” recently had an insightful post, Miniblog #137: How Did I Break from the Fundamentalist, Pentecostal Republican Mold?

While Carson’s post is about how he left his fundamentalist, Pentecostal, Republican mold, I think that his thoughts can apply to a number of “us vs. them” mentalities, not only those on the Right.  I’ll quote from this part of Carson’s post:

“Spanning the spectrum from politics to religion, so many conservatives and progressives seem fueled by sheer anger toward one another. It’s as though there’s something about them–something deep down in the recesses of their hearts, minds, and souls–that resonates with a spirit of opposition and is driven by a desire to defeat one another.  It’s this thirst for an intoxicating brew of power, control, and victory. When I was a fundamentalist I felt that elemental, competitive fire. Yet it was never a good fit. There was always something that felt innately amiss. It’s as though the perpetual conflict produced physical energy while simultaneously sapping my emotional, intellectual, and spiritual vitality.”

I can identify with what Carson is saying.  When I was right-wing, I was angry at liberals.  I felt that they were smug, condescending know-it-alls who looked down on everyone who disagreed with them, while assuming that they somehow spoke for most people.  And I wanted for them to be defeated, not just because I thought that their agenda for the country was dangerous, but also because I wanted them to feel the pain of knowing that most of America did not like them.  And so I rejoiced when George W. Bush won in 2004, or when anti-gay marriage measures passed in a bunch of states.  I was in-your-face about my conservatism, for I wanted the liberals I knew to realize that not everybody shared their views—-that there were other ways to see the issues.

To be honest, a lot of my ideological change occurred when I was away from actual liberals, when I did not have to be physically at my academic institution and could do a lot of my work at home.  During that time, I got to reflect more on issues, without bringing into consideration personalities, whom I liked, whom I disliked, etc.  I began to believe that winning elections is not so much a matter of telling off the “other side”, as it is of crafting policies that help the country, which includes people of different perspectives.  I especially felt this as I attempted to navigate my way through America’s health care system, with the health insurance premiums, the copays, and the fact that my health insurance company often left me with a lot of the bill.  I also was hearing and reading the horror stories of those who suffered at the hands of health insurance companies, or who struggled to pay off their student loans.  Moreover, in 2008, I was reading Barack Obama’s Audacity of Hope, and, while I disagreed with Obama on a number of issues, I admired his thoughtfulness and his ability to acknowledge valuable points in conservatism.

What I often wonder, though, is this: Am I all that different now from how I was as a conservative, only I’m on another team?  There is currently a part of me that cannot stand conservatives and conservative Christianity.  I hate conservatives’ judgmental attitude towards those who receive government aid, as many conservatives claim that such people do not want to work, when there are actually a number of people who do work yet remain poor.  I have also resented the spiritual bullying that I and others have received from conservative Christians, and so, while I remain a person of faith, I tend to gravitate towards atheist blogs and the religious blogs of people who are critical of conservative Christianity (i.e., Rachel Held Evans) because I am elated when conservative Christianity is criticized.  When conservative Christians get on their high horse and say that everyone should believe and behave in a certain way, and set themselves up as people’s judge, I get a lot of satisfaction when an atheist says, “Yeah, says who?”  I’m hoping (perhaps in vain) that this will take the wind out of conservative Christians’ sails, the same way that I hoped as a conservative (equally in vain) that political defeats would knock arrogant liberals off of their high horse.

So I’m not entirely different now from when I was a conservative.  And yet, there are some differences.  Nowadays, I don’t dismiss every criticism of my side with “the other side does the same thing” (or at least I try not to do so—-it’s tempting to resort to that when the other side gets self-righteous).  I don’t assume that my side is perfect whereas the other side is utterly flawed.  I identify heroes in both sides, conservative and liberal, and I read stuff from both sides—-well, not everything, for both sides produce stuff that is malevolent, bitter, and sometimes just plain nutty, but I appreciate a thoughtful (preferably three-dimensional) analysis of policy and politics, regardless of whether the person doing the analysis is a liberal, a conservative, or something else. 

Moreover, while there is still a part of me that relishes competition and the other side being taken down a few notches, there are times when I need something more nourishing.  I learned that back when I was a conservative.  I was in a bitter mood one day, I turned on Rush Limbaugh, and he was ranting about the inconsistency of the Left in criticizing Arnold Schwarzenegger’s alleged indiscretions with women while giving Bill Clinton a free pass.  As much as I enjoyed listening to Rush, I found that I needed to turn him off at that time because he was not helping my mood.

6/19/2012 Links

I have three links for today:

1.  Sarah Moon’s blog has a guest post by Abe Kobylanski entitled What Makes a Good Daddy?  Abe talks about how certain Christians (such as the Christians in a small group that he was in) claim that only Christians can show love, and yet his father is an atheist and has shown love to him numerous times.  Abe asks if all love, including the love shown by non-Christians, can be from God.  This is a beautiful post because of what Abe says about his father.  But (whether this would be Abe’s intention or not) the post also reminded me of why I tend to shy away from evangelical small groups, in which (in my opinion, based on my experience) there’s a lot of simplistic bombast.

2.  Derek Leman has an excellent post, Chicken or Egg? Bible and Culture, in which he touches on similarities between Yom Kippur and a Babylonian day (while also acknowledging that there are differences between the two).  So did a biblical author simply copy from another culture?  What are the theological implications of that?  Derek says that the ways in which the Hebrew Bible reflect its ancient Near Eastern environment demonstrate that revelation is incarnational and that God dialogues with human beings.  Derek states: “God dialogues more so than lecturing. Revelation is give and take, a discussion. And we are partners in the discussion, because we are made of God-stuff. “  Derek makes essentially the same point as Peter Enns in Inspiration and Incarnation, which many have echoed.  But Derek made it in a manner that resonated with me.

3.  And, speaking of Peter Enns, he has a post on evangelicals getting a Ph.D. in biblical studies—-advice for those considering it, potential pitfalls, how one shouldn’t attribute certain thoughts and feelings to God, etc.

5/1/2012 Links

I have three links for today, focusing primarily on social skills and coping:

1.  Aspergers Girl has an excellent post on 20 things NOT to say to people with Asperger’s, and 15 beneficial approaches.  A lot of what she says can probably apply to how we approach people with other problems as well.  People who say some of the 20 things NOT to say are most likely trying to be helpful—-to offer the person with Asperger’s hope, to motivate the person with Asperger’s, or to demonstrate that they understand what the person with Asperger’s is going through.  But what they say can easily be construed as offensive.  If you want to be supportive, it’s better, as Aspergers Girl notes, to be willing to listen and to convey that you are there for the person with Asperger’s and will provide help that the person wants.

2.  Literary agent (for Rachel Held Evans and others) Rachelle Gardner talks about how you can be supportive to the writers in your family.  What I liked about her post was that it presented writing as (in a number of cases) a thankless job, which makes me feel better, since there are times when I wish that my writing were more appreciated!

3.  Yesterday, I linked to an interview with Temple Grandin.  Temple made two points that I found helpful.  First, she said that we should be willing to try new things, for how do we know if we’ll like them or not if we don’t try?  Second, Temple said that people get fired for getting mad on the job, but not for crying, and so there are times when she goes to a solitary place and just cries.

The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships 9

A couple of things stood out to me in my latest reading of The Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships, by Temple Grandin and Sean Barron.

1.  On the issue of emotion, Temple and Sean are different in how they manifest their autism.  Temple is logical and believes that emotion distorts reality.  Sean, on the other hand, was angry as a child and as a teen because people were not accepting him and living up to his expectations.

I’ve come across both kinds of Aspergian people.  The first kind strike me as Mr. Spock-like, and they do not seem to have a great deal of compassion for people who struggle.  Rather, they believe that the people who struggle socially are at fault somehow and need to change (as if the people struggling even know what they need to do to change); as for their own social struggles, these Aspergians casually dismiss others as emotional rather than logical.  The second kind whine and complain because of their struggles—-because they don’t have a significant other, for example.  I’m not saying that Temple is totally like people in the first category, or that Sean is completely like those in the second category.  I’m just giving my impression of different kinds of Aspergian people whom I have met.  And, while I identify more with the second category, I have difficulty being around both kinds of Aspergian people.

2.  The book goes into social skills, as it talks about the importance of recognizing other people as individuals with their own interests, personal histories, and desires, and of expressing an interest in those things.  In my opinion, that’s a key aspect of socializing: honoring and expressing interest in other people.  There may be a right way and a wrong way to do this.  Deb Fine wrote a book on small talk, and she said that we should not come across like an FBI agent, shooting people one question after another.  Moreover, one thing that I fear is that I’ll ask a person a question, and that person will give me a long lecture in response on something that does not particularly interest me.  It’s happened before!  But a key part of socializing is expressing interest in others.  And, if a friendship develops and it ends up being one-sided, as one is sharing with you but has no interest in what you have to share, then perhaps you can tell him or her that you would like a relationship that is more mutual.