Last night was my final night teaching at the Inversion Fellowship.  This has been my post the last 3.5 years and most every Thursday night from Fall 2005 until last night have been spent with my friends there.  We are finishing a series entitled Walk On - A Call to Endurance in 2 Timothy and last night I preached from chapter 2 Timothy 4:1-8. 

My message was entitled Endurance has an Ending (Don't Punk Out) and treated the beginning of Paul's last words to his padawan learner Timothy.  It was a fun night, an emotional night and a night in which I pray Christ was honored.  Throughout the evening my inverted friends brought some special blessings to my soul. 

First, some fun knuckleheads wore some Jesus Junk t-shirts in solidarity with me.  I have been wearing this sort of shirt and mocking them this semester to have a little fun.  Well, three Inversion folks showed up last night wearing their own.  You know the shirts - the ones who take the John Deer logo and make it say "John Three" or take a Starbucks logo, change it around a little and the quote a verse from the book of He-Brews.  Well intentioned gear that I find profoundly stupid.  Well meaning Bible belt youth groups tend to dig this stuff as creative outreach.  As you know Jesus died for "MySpace" in heaven - good grief.  But I felt the love to have some peeps join in the fun.

Additionally, this crazy bunch of folks have been training to run in the Music City 1/2 or full marathon coming up this weekend here in Nashvegas.  These guys have made "Team Inversion" shirts with the cause they are running for being "Jacob's Well" - the shirst are killer and I was super humbled by their raising funds as a team for our little church plant heading to New Jersey.  Team Inversion - I've got big love for you. Here's a picture - that sweet baby blue has both Jacob's Well and Carolina on my mind.

They also made us a nice collage with the graphics of each teaching series we have led here over the past few years.  Can't wait to hang that on a wall in my dark basement office somewhere in Jersey!  Finally, to all of you Inversion people - thank you for you love, your spontaneous words of encouragement, your notes and your care for our family.  Most importantly, we thanked Jesus last night.  The crucified and risen one who calls us to live revolutionary, upside down lives as we struggle forward in his mission for his glory in the world.  I will close with a few challenging words from the greatest person who ever lived. 

Matthew 10:38, 39 And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.

Matthew 23:11, 12 The greatest among you shall be your servant. Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

Mark 9:33-35 And they came to Capernaum. And when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you discussing on the way?” But they kept silent, for on the way they had argued with one another about who was the greatest. And he sat down and called the twelve. And he said to them, “If anyone would be first, he must be last of all and servant of all.” 

Mark 1:14,15 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came into Galilee, proclaiming the gospel of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the gospel.”

A friend just asked why I wasn't blogging so much these days...I sent him this reply that I thought I would share.  Unless I decide to Liveblog the DWELL Conference (not going to happen) the POCBlog may be a little slower than usual.

I had a friend in Fri/Sat, preached twice at a church in Louisville Sunday, had seminary Monday, preach my last message at Inversion this Thursday (you should come), have the Jacob's Well send off gathering Sunday, final exam Monday, fly to NYC Monday night, at a conference for a couple of days, then house hunting through the weekend and back on May 4 with my tongue hanging out...and I have a wife and three kids who I want to know me. So blogging, Schlogging...the POC Blog may be a bit fallow for a bit

So that is how life is rolling right now - please pray for us if you think about it...we still need a place to live in NJ.

During the summer of 2004 our family moved to the Nashville metro area to begin to walk towards  the beginnings of a work with young adults in that city.  In October 2004 we held our first public gathering for the Inversion Fellowship - a group of young adults that I have walked with over the past 3.5 years.  In this first short years of Inversion’s existence we wanted to create a culture that wrestled openly with the issues of life, theology and mission – living very much on the ground of contemporary culture.  We didn't hire the coolest band in Nashville, we didn't have laser light shows and we didn't call people to simply get married, be happy and settle down with a little Jesus on the side. Our hope and prayer was to find life and satisfaction in the goodness and greatness of God and then to give our lives together for the Kingdom. 

We also thought it wasn't "cool" to not read or think deeply about the issues of truth and life.  We value laughing deeply together but not remaining ignorant about the intersection of truth and life. One of the bi-products of this turned into a series of short booklets (some are a bit more bookish) that we just finished and have "self-published" for our peeps in Inversion.

The following is from the Inversion web site where the booklets are available as free downloads for anybody who might be encouraged by these works...sample covers are below.  There are nine books covering various subjects.  You can see the complete listing here.

We want to thank the many upside down people of Inversion as love for them was a huge part of this work.  Most importantly we thank Jesus – our God and Savior - whose love, fame and mission gave meaning and hope to the work of our hands.  We pray these are of some use to him and his continuing work in the world in the days to come.

Despite the fact that all three of my kids are sick today...despite the fact that my property taxes next year will likely be as much as my current house payment...I am a bit jovial today.

The ESV Study Bible Web site just went live - and man they are doing this thing right.  Props to the moms and pops at Crossway and the team putting this together.  A few highlights.

• Pub date is October 2008
• The page layout looks great. Single column reading of the text...
  
• There will be an online edition launched along with it - you buy the book, you get web site access as well. 
• Full color illustrations/maps - see sample image here
• Eight formats including an affordable hardback at just over 32 bucks
• Greg Allison, my good friend and member of an advisory council for Jacob's Well wrote one of the articles.  See all contributors here.
  

Each volume of the Hinges of History® is intended to be read with pleasure and even surprise; it is not a series of academic obligations. Thus, in the past I have refrained from talking about the books to come, as if I was creating a syllabus. But now that there are just two volumes left to write, I imagine many readers can see where I am headed. So I will come clean: Volume VI will treat the Renaissance and, especially, the Reformation, thus tracing the Protestant contribution; Volume VII, tracing the secular-revolutionary-democratic contribution, will begin with the Enlightenment and go to . . . Well, I think that's enough to say, for now.

I will look forward to his interpretation of the Protestants and some of my theological fore bearers; perhaps he will see how law and liberty actually flowed from those who did Protest with courage enough to stand for freedom of conscience with life and limb on the line.  

For those interested in Cahill's work, I would recommend you begin with the Irish and then meander along as you so choose.  He also has an extensive page of discussion questions which serve as a helpful readers guide for the journey.

OK, the style and flow of this may be a bit raw for some...but it is quite creative.  This video is apparently being debated on the net - Is this a slam against atheists or believers?  One cannot know, but one can laugh.  Rated POCBlog PG-13.

(HT - Uncommon Descent)

A few interesting details on the English Standard Translation of the Scriptures.  First, Mark Driscoll gives a short description of the long...looooong awaited ESV Study Bible.  It sounds like they took the time to do it right...really right.  Looks to be a very important publication. Additionally, the translation is up to #4 in unit sales in data from February (see this pdf).  I think the addition of a full study Bible will only continue to help the adoption of the ESV. 

I came to the ESV dance back in 2003  - it is fun to see the translation continuing to gain traction. I was never able to switch from NIV to NASB...but the ESV was able to pry me from the translation I first read as a new Christian. I have enjoyed being an undercover ESV evangelist over the years.  I introduced it to our two teaching pastors at Fellowship in 2004 and then witnessed the conversion of our church from NASB to ESV in early 2006. 

My Bible Translation page has stuff on the ESV as well as the TNIV (me not like so much). 

There is an article in the New York Times about the rising interest in studying philosophy as an undergraduate.  Much of the article focuses on the highly rated philosophy department at Rutgers University - right in the backyard of the place we will soon call home.  I hope the Philosophy club will let me hang out with them - maybe they will think I am fresh meat...a willing friend on the journey perhaps.  I really look forward to it - I love the love of wisdom.

Here is the link. 

(HT - Owen Strachan) 

It appears that Richard Dawkins, the high priest of all the people who are smarter than all of you, seems to be quite unnerved by the the coming documentary Expelled.  On his site he has written a diatribe of sorts about all the stupid people who made the documentary Expelled.  It is interesting to observe Dawkins' tone.  He describes all involved with the project as untalented ignoramuses, who should be embarrassed to be breathing.  It is quite remarkable the arrogance that oozes from his writing.

Perhaps he simply does not realize that telling everyone: 1) I'm starter than you 2) You are an idiot 3) You have zero talent, just might not be the most effective method of persuasion.  Of course, this is not his play in life as he and the new atheist crowd do not desire dialog, only ridicule. Quite frankly, it appears that he thinks all believers in God should be lobotomized.  The choir of the high priest certainly loves to sing when Dawkins preaches.

The post's commentary on the film Expelled is also quite revealing and shows that Dawkins is obviously threatened by the documentary.  He goes to great length to interpret his role in the film so to ameliorate his role in a certain segment of the film.  Apparently, he wanted to give his own spin on the scene where he declares that life could have been intelligently designed by ET. 

One final note of comment to engage one of the philosophical points he attempts to levy against the film.  In the documentary, the filmakers apparently examine the application of Darwinian survival of the fittest to social theories and practices of the early 20th century.  Apparently the Nazi philosophy is focused on heavily in Expelled whereby the Nazi's wanted to eliminate the weak so that the fittest could survive and create a superior, more evolved humanity.

Dawkins then goes on to explain this is a commitment of the is-ought fallacy. Simply because nature IS a certain way - survival of the fittest, red with tooth and claw, does not mean that it OUGHT to be that way.  In other words, Dawkins explains to us that all that nature is, all reality is for that matter, is a complex evolution of matter/energy.  There is simply nothing else.  Yet then he goes on to say that we OUGHT to create a society that is the exact opposite of Darwinian reality.  Let me say that I agree with him - I want no Darwinian society; I agree with him that we ought care for the poor and live for the good of all not simply the strongest, most fit among us.  However, my question for Dawkins is precisely from where does he derive his OUGHT.  If nature all there is, there is nothing else here.  No moral universe, no higher truths, no reason beyond practicality to dictate what anyone OUGHT to do.  So I think he is massively missing the point. I thank God he, unlike the Nazis, is living a contradiction.  He is living inconsistently with his own view of the world. 

Dawkins simply has no reason for not wanting his Darwinian world to be society's reality. Believers in a purposed creation, a moral universe where we OUGHT to live in accord with what is good, right and true.  He is smuggling beliefs which do not flow from his deepest convictions.  He is stealing his OUGHT from other places because it is simply not found is his IS.  We have a reason for desiring a world contrary to the doldrums of Dawkins' Darwinian reality...for we know that his world is an impostor.  For this universe does indeed have purpose, meaning, a moral law and its correlative lawgiver.  It is to him that we all must give an account...

OK, that title could easily have been a technology entry here at POC...but instead of speaking about the weakness of text messaging on the iPhone, I wanted to put you on to a debate about the textual manuscripts of the New Testament.

There is an excellent summary online at Parchment and Pen of the recent debate between New Testament scholars Bart Ehrman and Daniel Wallace.  You may interact with Ehrman's ideas if you ever talk to thoughtful non Christians as his book MisQuoting Jesus has sold quite well over the last few years.

I interacted a bit with a bit of Ehrman's argumentation a few years back when reading his book Lost Christianities. You can read that here - Kind of Ironic.

On Wednesdays in this interim season between Inversion and moving to New Jersey I am trying to slow down the soul a bit on Wednesdays for some time dedicated to my growth and development as a man.  One of things I am doing is reading slowly through the book Renewal as a Way of Life by Richard Lovelace (I forgot to put this one on the "books I am currently reading" below).  I am about 1/3 of the way through the book and it has been very good, humbling and quotable.  So, I thought I would share some quotes today which encouraged me...and by typing them out hear perhaps provide some light for others.

Here is one on the relation to using God to get stuff...a mixture of Lovelace/Augustine:

On the other hand, evangelical religion as an aid to self-assurance, health or wealth really short-circuits the soul's path toward contact with God, which is the heart's deepest desire.  As Augustine observes, "Many cry to the Lord to avoid losses or to acquire riches, for the safety of their friends or the security of their homes, for temporal felicity or worldly distinction, yes, even for mere physical health which is the sole inheritance of the poor man...Alas, it is easy to want things from God and not to want God himself; as though the gift could ever be preferable to the giver." Or as he says elsewhere, "The soul cannot rest save in that which it loves.  But eternal rest is given only in the love of God, who alone is eternal." Lovelace, 31

The next one was his commentary on the soul's search for a sense of value and identity apart from God - I think many of us, Christian and not, live here often.

They must get a black market substitute for God's love from psychiatrists or other human beings. But this need for love and dignity is so great that self-admiration and the love of others cannot begin to satisfy it.  We can cheer ourselves up only so long by repeating the pitiful fiction "I'm OK - You're OK."  Then we begin to check our own credentials, and our therapist's, for making such judgments.  Lovelace, 36.

In reflecting on the outflow of the love of God through his people he makes a rather dogmatic claim which I found very true.

Spirituality which neglects the love of neighbor, and which fails to seek justice for the neighbor, is simply not biblical. Lovelace, 37.

He has an interesting metaphor for the reality of human enterprise on the earth.  We can be about building the Kingdom or simply go on building Babel.

In the Old Testament, God warns Israel that most human kings will not hallow life, but will turn it into building materials for the Tower of Babel (he includes here the text of 1 Samuel 8:11-18)...Things have not changed since biblical times. Building Babel is still an expensive business. Lovelace, 43.

Indeed, it costs us our very selves as we become cogs in the machine rather than sons and daughters with a purpose in the universe. Finally, in a bit of meddling he comments on the focus of upwardly mobile Protestants in New England after the influence of dying religious formalism (in our day we might as well apply it to upwardly mobile atheological evangelicals). 

The real goals of upwardly mobile Protestantism can be seen in Lisa Birnbach's humorous volume entitled The Official Preppy Handbook, which idealizes the semi-apostate New England family, still glumly going through the motions of "the Puritan ethic" in a sort of twilight zone between Christianity and secularism in order to facilitate its summers on Martha's Vineyard. Lovelace 52-53.

Lovelace's book so far has been a great refresher - a call to God-centeredness and then to living under the rule and reign of Jesus - working, laboring, fighting for...a Kingdom of peace, justice, truth and beauty in this present age as we await the renewal of all things.   

Church Historian Michael Haykin is also a poet as well as a writer about all things in the Puritan era...I really found his poem entitled Modern Sex quite interesting:

No metaphysical union here
Nor majestic ontology—
Only animal pairing
That come break of day parts,
Not to share a glance again.

No talk of Love,
nor Companionate meeting of flesh—
Only business
That ploughs the field
For lucre and gain.

Embodièd worship
And Glory gone—
The squalid alone is left,
Confusion, chaos, and coal
Without regal Fire.

Michael A.G. Haykin
Modern Sex ©2008.

Some seminary blog friends tagged me with a reading Meme.  So here goes.

What are you reading on Spring reading days?

Spring reading days...hmm...don't have that as an external but here is what I am currently picking through.  I am about six chapters into Keller's book The Reason for God.  I am also reading a book from the UK entitled Total Church by Chester and Timis.  Not sure if this counts but I am also listening to The Mystery of the Middle Ages by Thomas Cahill - a strangely ecclectic volume. 

What do you wish you had time to read?

Gospel in Pluralistic Culture by Leslie Newbegin, Fear and Trembling by Kierkegaard, One Body, One Spirit: Principles of Successful Multiracial Churches by George A. Yancey

What have you decided NOT to read that you were assigned to read.

I'm only in one class so I am gutting it out and reading it all :)

What is one great quote from your reading?

This is odd - I heard a great quote from Francis of Assisi from Cahill's book.  It is on the third audio MP3, thirty minutes in...I do mean to go back and transcribe it. I think it is this one though:

Why are you blogging? (You’re supposed to be reading!)

As anything we do, I think I am blogging because I want to...and I think God wants me to as well. I blog primarily to think and write about things that interest me - mainly the gospel, theology, technology, philosophy, culture and stuff that makes me laugh out loud (stuff like this).  As such my blog is a work of eclecticism - shallow enough in many spheres as to perplex those who read the site.  Is this a tech blog?  Is this a theology blog? Is this a Christ and Culture Blog? Apologetics?  No - well, maybe a little.

I want to tag Owen Strachan with this (even though he is now at Trinity) 

I just jumped off the plane from Newark, NJ for a medium sized three hour layover in the Chicago airport.  On the flight into the windy city I read through an article on a persona I have followed a bit over the years.  The article was in WIRED magazine and was simply titled Futurist Ray Kurzweil Pulls Out All the Stops (and Pills) to Live to Witness the Singularity. Well, maybe that title is not so simple nor the ideas being discussed therein.  Let me try to summarize, in a few words, the work of Ray Kurzweil.

In my opinion, Ray Kurzweil is one of the intellectual geniuses of our times. He has been a bit of a legend in the computer science and artificial intelligence worlds.  I know, that is probably something like .00001 percent of the world's population but he has contributed greatly in inventing technology that has changed the world.  His work has been mainly in pattern recognition and machine text/speech recognition.  He has invented software that can read books out loud to the blind and answer you phone calls for large companies.  Well, maybe the latter one has been a bit of a frustrating experience to some.  Kurzweil's more controversial work however has been as one of the leading proponents of what is known as Strong AI. 

Strong AI holds that human intelligence (even consciousness for that matter) can be reduced (read my previous post on reductionism) to processes similar to a very complex computer.  In other words, if you can mimic human thought, decision making...even emotions, you then have consciousness and self awareness. So in his theory, there will be a day when computers are powerful enough for Skynet to "wake up" make its own decisions and take over the world. Many of you have been exposed to the Strong AI view in pop culture through cinematic exploration.  The aforementioned Skynet of the Terminator lore, HAL2000 of 2001 a Space Odyssey, the weird boy robot flick AI, the bizarre world of Minority Report, Will Smith's rambunctious robot romp in iRobot and the new theistic, philosophical cylons of the new Battlestar Gallictica.

Kurzweil believes that as computational power increases the ability to write a brain simulating, consciousness simulating algorithm draws nearer in time.  In other words, given enough processing power, computers will some day be as human as you.  Hence, his earlier works evolved from The Age of Intelligent Machines to the book I read some years ago entitled The Age of Spiritual Machines.  Now, Kurzweill did not suddenly become a dualist in changing his language to "Spiritual Machines."  His point is simply that future computers will appear to be every bit as conscious as ourselves - they might even worship and read books by the compuDalilama (my term, not his).  His latest update of the book and its ideas deals with what he calls the singularity, and according to Kurzweil, it is near.

In the work, The Singularity Is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology (Viking Penguin), he speaks of a soon coming day where a radical shift in life as we know it will take place. At this singularity, we will all be uploaded as software into the network, with non perishing "bodies" (if you want) and live forever.  Immortality, the fountain of youth and becoming as gods all in one push of a brain upload button.  Now, if you believe this narrative (and many do not - read the sidebar in WIRED, Never Mind the Singularity, Here's the Science, featuring research of those that think the whole scheme of things is flawed) you will want to stay alive long enough to reach this glorious land.  If you die before we arrive, so to speak, you will not get to gather at the other side with the other comphumans. Interestingly enough a Physicist Frank Tipler in The Physics of Christianity is writing about similar ideas though from a theistic perspective; though I found it very bizarre. If all this sounds a bit nuts, you are not alone. 

One of the philosophical problems with computing=consciousness is that of self-knowledge.  Computers, by nature of their design, perform by processing tasks according to algorithms.  Even the learning and evolving systems, do so according to predetermined rules of logic placed upon them from minds - in this case programming.  In other words, computers process data and symbols , they do not "know" anything.  I actually thought of this over the weekend observing the functioning of a GPS navigation system in a car.

Our realtor during our house hunting in NJ would punch in an address and then a kind woman's voice (perhaps using Kurzweil inspired technology patents) would tell us precisely where to turn to arrive at our destination.  In our case it was usually a small, dumpy, overpriced house...but I digress.  Let me do a bit of a thought experiment with you at this point.  Imagine for a moment that you were in a vehicle where you could not see where you were going yet you could cause a car to turn right or left based upon the cues from a GPS system processing your location.  You would receive data, act upon it, then arrive perfectly at your desired destination.  I felt like I actually did this many, many times sitting in the back seat of a car zipping around New Jersey this weekend.  Now, in our experiment, you would seem to have a great knowledge of the area and a great sense of directions.  Yet there is one glaring problem - you actually have no idea where you are.  You have zero knowledge of New Jersey or any conscious sense of direction.  You simply processed input and data.  Computers process symbols and data, they do not know anything.  They can do many things, appear intelligent, etc but they do not know.  For a more sophisticated argument John Searle's now famous Chinese Room Problem is similar and much more cogent.

I also find massive ethical problems with this view because it will mean the rich and technological persons will keep themselves alive while others will languish in the pre-singularity world of death and decay.  A new elitism will be even more severe in the imagined world of Kurzweil's future.  It seems like a world that will have more selfish people, concerned only about the perpetuation of their own lives.  God forbid the poor masses ever decide to pull the plug (literally) on the machines - we all know that will mean war.  I've seen the Matrix you know.  Or perhaps we will be self-deluded once again that we will make the world perfect this time around.  Perhaps we have forgotten what happens in reality, as well as literature and film, when human beings think they can make the perfect world in their own image.

So what is Kurzweil doing besides promoting his vision of the coming singularity? He is taking hundreds of supplements a day and trying to experiment with any life lengthening idea just to keep his biological existence intact so he can make it.  He is quite wealthy and is spending massive amounts of resources on keeping his ticker going as the clock ticks forward.  Unfortunately none of this can keep one from getting hit by a bus, shot by a crazy person, or succumbing to disease. Yet it does seems that hope for immortality, even eternal life, lives even among materialists.  Many today hope in aliens, hope in getting off this mound called earth by a coming Starship Enterprise and many hope to create our descendants and be transferred into machines by fiber optic transfer (or whatever high bandwidth technology is available at the singularity).  Sadly, some may choose suicide. 

What does all of this reveal about the human soul? I think we see that we long to live, not die.  We long for a better future where the harsh realities of life outside of Eden are brought to an end.  Some choose to trust in the promises of God and resurection for the hope of eternal life.  Others seek to become godlike themselves.  Where does this leave a human being?  In Kurzweil's own description - it has left him lonely.

Note

For all one of you interested in wrestling with these ideas further I recommend the work
Are We Spiritual Machines?: Ray Kurzweil vs. the Critics of Strong A.I. edited by Jay Wesley Richards.

Many thanks to all of you who rallied behind POC in Blog Madness...you have shocked the world, stood with me among the Baptists, saved kittens and monkeys and kept my kids from crying.  Perhaps you learned about some sweet blogs as well. 

Today, is a new day - in fact, the madness just went to Overtime.  Unlike my Tarheels, we need to show up and vote once more to make the POC comeback complete. 

You can vote here - time is short, vote today...

Kasey and I have been up here in NJ since Thursday looking for a new home for our family.  The house hunt has been discouraging as things are either really expensive or really shack-like.  We found a nice ranch and made an offer which was countered.  We have another offer in and awaiting a reply.  Please pray as there simply isn’t much here in our price range even though we did pretty well on our house in Tennessee.  Pray for Kasey and me as this has been a strong dose of reality for us this weekend.  Thank you so much.

More evidence has emerged that shows that those who use Macintoshes are religious devotees.  There is a show dedicated to those who have "born again" - delivered from PC Hell into Mac Heaven.  Again, I love the Mac and Apple products, but since I still confess Jesus as Lord and God I must...with conviction...call to my brothers to resist idolatry.  Worshiping a good thing as an ultimate thing is not good for the soul - MacIdolatry must be added to all "cult watch" ministries as many are becoming born again.  Which everyone knows is a term for "holy roller weird." 

To all those moderate, mainline Mac users - who owned Mac classics, talk to your brothers about moderation.  It is a good thing.