iPhone Review

Engadget has the most ridiculous iPhone review out...ridiculously thorough. Enjoy, but don't worship a little handheld device...that would be evil. 

Jacob's Well

The web site of some of our new labors and calling just went live this week.  Jump on over to www.JacobsWellNJ.org - I would love get your feedback.

Many thanks to: 

• To my wife for being patient as I developed the site content in the wee hours of many mornings.
• To Matt Combs, Matt Eldredge and Paul Morris for their outstanding work on the video.  Expertise and time graciously donated and done with high excellence. 
  
• To Tim Challies for helping me implement the site design.
  
• To Weylon Smith for designing us a great logo
  
• To Megan Miller for designing a fantastic brochure (not on the site)
  
• To Jesus - for saving my butt in 1992 and giving us work to do.  Humbled by his grace and passion.

Exciting times...prayerful times. Now the journey continues...Pray for all the needed provisions to come in - we hope to move in about a year.

Pray for my cousin Joe

I wanted to ask those who read here and are the praying types to remember my family.  I have a cousin who is really bad shape in the ICU from complications with an immune deficiency disease.  He may not make it.  Pray for him, his Mom and brothers, and our family during this time.  He was the older cousin when we were growing up - always was very good to us (we call him "bo-bo" because one of us couldn't quite say Joe).

Thanks 

Transformers, Film, and Theology

James Harleman has an interesting piece of cultural analysis up over at the Resurgence.  As a kid I was a transformers freak.  And a jock...and a science geek.  So I really found this interesting.  Check it out here: Optimus Prime Gets WIRED

Dearly Beloved We Are Gathered Here Today

I have been doing so many weddings this year and really enjoying the rich symbolism of Christian marriage.  Then I thought to myself the other day: what could a thoroughly consistent, 100% naturalistic, Darwinian wedding service sound like? So I figured I would humor myself and have a little fun. 

The high priest of unbelief, the Right Reverend Richard Dawkins presiding of course.  You may be seated.

Specialized hominids, we are gathered here today to observe a socially evolved meme of pair bonding among of our species.  The years of mutation and selection have given us the general wisdom that pair-bonded members of our clans represent a successful evolutionary social adaptation for the rearing of our progeny. 

Our selfish genes move us to appreciate these occasions as we feel the safety coming from young offspring which will care for us and protect us from predators in our old age.

Even though we now deny the wisdom of eons of evolution that taught us that monogamous pair-bonding is the best way, we now know that we do not need such arrangements in our enlightened age.  We should do away with this oppressive institution (which evolutionary ethics developed as good) and reinvent a better way with our own individual wisdom. 

In fact, if mates of the same sex desire to pair-bond, we affirm this fully - for the evolved consensus of prior ethics must be wrong.  A less adaptable meme which must die. We love to base our cherished institutions on evolutionary ethical theory - but then again we can reject them any time we want.

In fact, I'm not really sure what we are here for, but these two hominids desire to participate in this antiquated social arrangement.  So we are happy and we celebrate this with them.  May they be happy and be fruitful and multiply fit progeny - but only if they want to, and if it doesn't take too many resources from their lifestyle, and if we all agree we are not overpopulating the planet.  On second thought, they better not breed.  

So I suppose we have an occasion today to have a party and our genes desire it - perhaps it will lead to more pair-bonding - who knows why, but we can do this again until we lose the will to exist.  Then we will allow the religious meme to dominant once again - for those mastered by this persistent idea have many more offspring than we.

What our genes have deemed for today, let no one separate - in the name of quantum fluctuations, spontaneous generation, and self-replicating systems, Amen.

The newly bonded couple now invites you to their open bar to get really drunk with them.  Thank you for coming. 

Personally, I still think the beauty of Christian marriage is much more inspiring...

"Good as New" is Bad

I try to blog from time to time on Bible translations...mainly the TNIV and the ESV newer works that have taken different angles in translations.  I am not a TNIV fan, but it is infinitely better the Good as New Retelling of Scripture coming out of the UK. 

Phil Johnson has a sampling of its drool over at his Pyromaniacs site.  Younger Christians out there, don't buy into this sort of crap. 

The Unbearable Slowness of Blog...

Some of you may be wondering - why the slowdown on the POCBlog.  To be honest, I really enjoy writing and being away from the blog here shows that to me quite a bit.  Summer has been a bit of a full flow with some additional things hitting the plate. 

First, I have enjoyed doing four weddings in recent months.  It is a joy and pleasure to walk with God and young couples into the marriage covenant.  Second, I am neck deep in seminary work.  I just returned from a long week of classes - 8-6 every day.  I am now working on a very large project to complete the class.  Third, though I have not broke this publicly here on the site, I am working very hard on a future church plant in the Northeast.  We are hoping to shove our ship off into that ocean in about a year.  For now I can say a coming post here at POC is imminent outlining some of our plans.  We have just finished a brochure (the designer did a sweet job), almost finished with a video (the video dudes, did a SWEET job), and web site (the web designers did great - one of them was me, but at least the other guy did a sweet job).  Fourth, I continue to use some summer time to meet with some young dudes for whom I did their weddings last summer.  I met with one yesterday who is doing well and see another friend tomorrow. Fifth, I have this wonderful family God has given me.  I have spent some fun days at the pool with two little girls who are fast becoming mermaids and enjoyed a good date with Kasey on Saturday night.  July will have us out on the road for some needed vacation and some more seminary for me.  Then we'll exhale in August before launching our fall with all my friends at Inversion. 

Speaking of which, we have been hard at work on shaping the vision for Inversion in the fall as God has placed us on a cool track for our teaching at our Thursday night gatherings...Oh yeah, I am cranking on a re-vamp of the Inversion Fellowship web site; and since I have already overused the word - I just have to say that it is sweet :).  Props to the peoples at Church Plant Media with whom I am working on that project. By God's grace, keep your eye out for that in mid-July.

So if you were wondering - has Reid gone to sleep on the blog here?  Well, I do need more sleep, but still love the POCBlog.  I have a fun entry on weddings if they were done from a purely secular/naturalistic view - Richard Dawkins as the officiant.  Should be fun.

Your prayers are appreciated. That I would rest, get good time in Scripture, not give way to fear, and press on in confident humility.

Blessings to all my POC friends out there. 

June 27-28 - Great Days to Desire God

For two days only, June 27-28, the Desiring God Online Store is offering all their
books for just 5 bucks.  So if you have not purchased that John Piper book you have been eying - I would say tomorrow is the day.  

 
Some people are getting hyped up about Friday's iPhone - I am pumped for Wed/Thur and getting a bunch of copies of Battling Unbelief to give to our people.

New iPhone Specs

Engadget has some new specs for the iPhone which broke on the Onion. Check em out:

 

OK, just kidding...not that I am down with all that is on the Onion - but it sometimes has some humorous stuff.  For a satirical look at the Christian subculture check out Lark News.  If you are a Christian who cannot laugh at yourself, please do not visit.  After laughing, weep for the church in America.

Un-Wise?

Frank Beckwith has an interesting post over at First Things regarding atheist Richard Dawkin's assessment of Harvard trained paleobiologist Kurt Wise.  What is interesting is that Dr. Wise is a professor at Southern Seminary (I am currently at Southern taking a class) and a young earth creationist.

What is interesting about the Beckwith piece is that he takes to task Dawkin's lament about Wise "wasting" his talents as human being and intellectual.

Beckwith rightly calls into question Dawkin's lament of Wise in light of his atheism.  In an atheistic worldview there is no "proper use" of human faculties at all - people just do what they want with no warrant or "ought" that people could be held to.  Perhaps Dawkins does not like that Wise does not believe as he does - but an atheistic worldview has nothing to offer human beings in terms of normative function.  There is simply nothing we ought to conform to.  Now in terms of a biblical view, one can certainly waste the gifts and talents given by God.  It seems like Dawkins is stealing the cookies off the theistic shelves.

Please Pray

Hey everyone, I really wanted to ask those our there who read POCBlog and who are the praying kind of people to lift my good friend Garrett Kell up in prayer.

Yesterday he was helping a woman in his church with some yard work when there was an accident when lighting some brush that needed to be burned.  Garrett was burned by a flash fire on the right side of his face and arms.  The burns are 2nd degree and he has been taken to the burn unit at a Dallas hospital.  I just spoke with him by phone.  He is in some pain (especially his right arm/hand) and most the skin is gone from the right side of his face.

His fiance has set up a site to give updates when she can. Here is the link to this site.

Many thanks

Reid 

Out of Luck

OK, tonight after I returned home after proclaiming a wedding ceremony (they call it officiating - sounds like sports) I flipped on the TV and caught a short part of the ABC news show 20/20.  The topic of the show "Luck" - It is quite amazing to me the amount of silly "non-sense" that was portrayed on this show.  My earlier essay, No Such Luck, was totally confirmed. 

When people deny God and the clear hand of providence they are only left prostrate before a vacuous word. It is amazing as we have supposedly become more intelligent as a society the more superstitious we have become. 

To Quote Steve Turner's poem creed one more time:

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin.
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone,
to the best of your definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before during
and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy's OK
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything's getting better
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated.
You can prove anything with evidence.

We believe there's something in horoscopes,
UFO's and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha
Mohammed and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher although we think
his good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same,
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of
creation sin heaven hell God and salvation.

We believe that after death comes The Nothing
because when you ask the dead what happens
they say Nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied,
then it's compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps Hitler, Stalin and Genghis Khan.

We believe in Masters and Johnson.
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between
warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behaviour that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions .
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth
that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust. History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds.

Sure we do...at least lucky people do. 

McGrath's Scientific Theology

Ben Vastine, a friend here on the POCBlog and graduate student in engineering at Texas A&M commented on some recent reading he had been doing in Allistair McGrath's Scientific Theology series.  I asked him if he had any article length summaries of his position and he passed one on to me.  Though I should be reading seminary books for class next week (apologies Kasey) - I found this little morsel very stimulating.

The article is found here.  I found his reflection on how our view of "nature" is not worldview neutral to be fascinating.  Here is a brief quote:

Nature is a construction of the reader, reflecting her theoretical precommitments; it is not an autonomous reality, which can be the objective basis of theoretical reflection. Suggestions such as these radically undermine the plausibility of worldviews which hold that ‘nature’ is an objective reality, capable as functioning as the basis of a worldview. If anything, ‘nature’ is itself the outcome of a worldview. Without an ontology of nature, the concept has little value in critical intellectual discourse. It is for this reason that Christian theology offers a specific reading of nature, regarding it as God’s creation, and insisting that it is only in this manner than the notion of ‘nature’ can be given any intellectual stability. 

Interesting for those who get all geeked up about theological method (all 3 of you).  I would be interested in his project of "scientific dogmatics" - or stating the beliefs arrived at by his methodology - but as he concludes the article. That is perhaps for some other day.  He uses the insights of postmodernism to critique enlightenment certainty which poses as if it exists without philosophical worldview.  I found this good.  But postmodern insight often throws a mass of babies out with some dirty bathwater.  I would however love to ask him his view of escaping the postmodern rabbit hole.  For me, the revelation of God in Scripture and in Jesus Christ - and the attending biblical worldview, ground a view of reality that allows a robust realism to persist.  From Ben's comments, I think this would be Dr. McGrath's position - which should be no shock.  It has been the position of Christian philosophy for centuries - ontology grounds our pursuit of knowledge.  And Christian ontology gives ground to rationality, science, and an ethic that does not shift with the sands of time.

Apple News...

Steve Jobs is speaking again this morning at the World Wide Developers Conference.  Mac Idolaters will array in droves to hear what Jobs is saying to the devotees.  The buzz says a lot of Leopard, .Mac getting hooked up with Google, maybe movie rentals in iTunes as well.  Endgadget will live blog the keynote - that jazz can be found here.

On another note, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs recently gave a joint interview on stage at the D conference. It is an interesting look back on the last 30 years of personal computing from two guys who were in the thick of it from the beginning. It is available free on iTunes in both audio and video formats.  If you are at all interested in Tech history, this is a good listen.

Finally, the most important Mac News today - The Logos Bible Software OS X widget now has the ESV.  This indeed is cause for rejoicing.

 

American Farming...

 

Here is how we acquire our food in America...full res pics at the link

Inversion Fellowship

Over the last 2 1/2 years we have had the privilege of starting a young adult ministry here in Nashville at Fellowship Bible Church.  The following is a little peak into that reality we call Inversion.  It has been a joy to help build the foundations for this and watch God grow that seed into a passionate gospel centered group of young adults.

Inversion peeps - blessings, my friends.  Much love from the Monaghan clan

Book Review - Simple Church

 

Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger, Simple Church – Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples (Nashville, Broadman and Holman, 2006) 257pp.

Introduction

A simple revolution is afoot. Some people know it, some people do not. From the elegance of the Google home page, to the industrial design of the products from Apple Inc, to the system of air travel put forth by Southwest airlines, or better pizza, better ingredients1; simplicity is in. This revolution, so says Thom Rainer and Eric Geiger, has made its way into the church as well; and this is a good thing. This review will briefly summarize the argument made by Rainer and Geiger in their recent work Simple Church – Returning to God’s Process for Making Disciples (from here on, Simple Church), discuss some of the strengths of their position, highlight a few shortcomings and then close with some thoughts of application for life and gospel ministry. To the summary we now turn; hopefully it will be simple.

Brief Summary

The thesis of the book is that a revolution is happening. A simple revolution; one in which the churches that move everything along a basic pathway for spiritual formation are growing and flourishing while those who cram menus full of disconnected programs are well…simply floundering. The thesis is supported by research done by surveying a range of churches and measuring their responses to questions geared to gauge the simplicity of the church along several criteria. The results of the survey were that having a simple process/path to spiritual maturity is a key factor in the success of a church (success here defined as a growing congregation). The statistical results of the survey were at a level of .001; a number that is highly significant, apparently a range of correlative significance that causes mandatory singing among statisticians (14). They define a simple church as “a congregation designed around a straight-forward and strategic process that moves people through the stages of spiritual growth” (60).

The results of the research led the authors to several conclusions which they summarized along four lines. Each simple church had clarity, movement, alignment and focus. The rest of the book breaks out these aspects – a clear process, moving people along this process sequentially, aligning all ministries and programs of a church to the process, and maintaining focus by saying no more than David Spade on a capital one credit card commercial. Their conclusions were that to be or become simple means to survive. The call towards the end of the book is that churches must return to a simple process of discipling people; or die. Simple enough? Now some strengths and weaknesses of simply being (or in the case of this book the process of doing) the church will be examined.

Strengths

This book has several outstanding and helpful points to make. For the sake of brevity, the strengths will be summarized along three lines. First, the much needed critique of the propensity for churches to become spazzed out program factories to the detriment of the mission of God will be discussed. The second strength is the exhortation to church leaders to become “designers or architects” of communities rather than men busy implementing church fads and running programs. The final strength to be focused on will be some great leadership insights offered in the book.

Critiquing the Spazzed Out Menu Church

One of the things which stood out in this book is the illustration and critique of the church that labors to fill its menu with programmatic delights which pack full the schedule of pastor and parishioner alike. The reality that too many Christians are “busy” with church stuff, including leaders, was brought out both with the fictitious illustrations of Pastor Rush (4-8) and with the real life illustration of First Church (41-46). The contrast between the spazzed out programming spinning “First Church” and the more simple “Cross Church” to be a compelling method to get this point across. Whether or not the authors were poking at their own tradition with the chosen names to represent the churches will never be known, yet it did seem to indicate a simple Cross centered church to be preferred to the bulky traditional church perpetuating programs.

Community Designers and Architects

The second area of strength for the book was the use of the metaphor of builder or architect for church leaders and pastors. The metaphor is biblical for it is Paul’s own description of his discipling the church at Corinth (1 Corinthians 3:10-15). Now some may object that Paul is speaking of building people, not systems and processes for the church. Yes, Paul is speaking of the work among the people, but certainly his work would have contained a method. We see this in other parts of the New Testament as Paul describes his ministry. He passed on the gospel to the people (1 Corinthians 15), he demonstrated from Scripture that Jesus was the Christ (Acts 18:28), he preached the cross (1 Corinthians 1), he established young leaders (see 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus), he proclaimed Jesus, admonished and taught (Colossians 1:28, 29) and he showed concern for the poor (Galatians 2:10). Jesus himself certainly had a method as well as shown briefly in this volume (160-162) and in more detail elsewhere.2 So the architecture metaphor of Paul is rightly applied to architecting church processes, if those processes indeed are about making disciples of Jesus Christ. The emphasis on designing processes that are simple, clear, with movement, aligning all things, and staying focused is a great reminder in the wilderness of evangelical pragmatism which consistently peddles a new model for “doing church” to the masses who want to “do it right.” The emphasis on design calls pastors to pull out of the fray of the day to day operation of the church to bring heart and mind before the clean air of the throne of Grace, seeking God’s direction for the church. The book encourages us to step back and see the big picture. (26) Pastor Mark Driscoll at Mars Hill Church in Seattle repeatedly exhorts pastors to make sure they take the time to work on their church not simply in it. Anyone who has experienced the phone calls, e-mails, and meetings of a growing and needy congregation will realize this need to pull out, pray, and get clarity on what we need to do and what should be left on the cutting room floor.

Some Highlights for me personally that spoke to good architecture:

• “A plagiarized biblical vision is always a good thing” (39) – Yes, we ought to take our method and vision from Scripture.
• Seeing numbers across the church process horizontally so you can observe not just growth, but sequential movement. (47-48)
• Have the process touch every member of the family, each ministry to each age are experiencing the same process (182). I did find a flaw here as well, as the family is still not experiencing the process “together” in the fashion the book described. The focus was still on creating programs that separate the spiritual formation of the family out into women, men, kids, etc.
• Recruiting members of the staff team to the process, rather than simply recruiting an all star team without any alignment to the philosophy of ministry (53).
• Focusing your new member class on the process (152) so everyone is exposed to the way the church lives out the gospel together. Doing this from day one for people becoming members.

General Leadership Insights

Finally, the book offered several good insights and general principles for leadership. The insights ranged in topic so this will treat them in the order they occurred to the author of this paper. First, an emphasis was placed on seeing philosophical as well as theological alignment on staff teams (174). It is not enough to believe the same things, but also to have agreement on how and what to do in accomplishing the things we believe. Different churches will have different emphases, but if a staff team is going in six different directions within the team, unity and teamwork becomes problematic. Second, the emphasis given on leaders actually doing what they call others to do (132) is not groundbreaking but a necessary statement to make. My only fear is that many ministers find much of the gospel difficult and leave it untried. If a pastor does not want to spend time with and love the poor, he may never preach about it and lead a process towards this. This is very common in many evangelical circles. This book reminds that preaching and living should be conjoined; that leaders cannot shrink back from preaching obedience to Jesus, even when it requires that we not neglect the matter ourselves. Third, in the discussion on alignment, the book gave a great reminder that people “drift from alignment” over time (75) to be indispensible to leadership. Leaders must never tire from saying the same things over time. Say it differently, say it with freshness, but it must be said. New people do not know and have the history with the process and old people go to sleep. Words and deeds should be present so the process is both known and seen. Alignment will otherwise dissipate over time. Finally, the authors did a good job presenting the tension involved with the pace of change to move a congregation to a simple process. Do it fast, but not too fast – wisdom for both the impatient and procrastinator. Let the Spirit guide the brake and gas pedal, but the leaders/designers must get moving nonetheless. These were the leadership insights found helpful in the volume.

Weaknesses

Though for the most part the book to have helpful insights, it did have a few weaknesses and drawbacks. Two will be covered here: 1) the linearity of the process description and 2) the possible pitfalls of being so process driven. Each will be handle in turn.

Linearity, Front Doors, and Person Centered Entry Points

Throughout the book the emphasis is placed on moving people through a process and system of spiritual growth. The reader is exhorted to think through the entry point of the process and then how they will move program to program in the system. In literally every example the front door to the church was the Sunday worship service. Though this is probably a valid insight and good design; to expect people to “show up first” on Sunday, it needs to be nuanced in our day as the church must take the gospel to people who simply are not “coming to church.” Much has been written today about the influence of relational networks and the rapid spread of the early church and the process in which conversions take place. Rodney Stark, sociologist and historian at Baylor University, makes this point very clear in Cities of God - The Real Story of How Christianity Became and Urban Movement and Conquered Rome, his recent study of conversion in the early church. His argument was that conversions occurred through the relational networks of Christian believers moving through the empire in the course of commerce and everyday life.3 In thinking through entry points into a church, the thinking needs to be that every person is an entry point, every small group, every service rendered to the poor, as well as the Sunday morning. It is agreed that Sundays should still be considered a main entry, yet the emphasis on having other smaller, even person centered entry points was lacking. A simple process designed as described in this book would support a multiple entry point church without adjustment, but the people must be lead to think of their lives together in a certain fashion. Are they “coming to church” and “bringing others to church” or are they the sent people of God into culture as missionaries, representing and bringing the gospel everywhere they live, work, and play? There is an immense difference in the two. Members should see the home, the pub, the small group, the place of common interest, the civic club, the soccer fields etc. as possible first steps in a simple process. The congregation must be discipled to be missionaries in culture.

Potential for Process Idolatry

The other concern found with the work was the obsessive focus on the process itself. In some cases this could have people forgetting who we are to “be” within the process. Getting the good process in place does not solve the problem of the heart. The church can easily make an idol out of a process. If the process becomes an idol, our churches could feel like robotically focused factories that miss people “in the process.” It is understood that the authors’ argument is that returning to a simple discipleship process will focus people on God, but it must be said that systems can become ends to themselves. One quick example. Rick Warren offers a diagram of turning a core in to a crowd in his purpose driven system. It looks like the following:

 

Figure 1: Five Concentric Circles in the Purpose Driven System 

Without stating the obvious there is someone very important missing from the diagram. The diagram is designed to show the different audiences and persons which the church is targeting with their programs and efforts. Now in defense of Warren, the diagram assumes the triune God is “everywhere in the picture” but my concern with process-centrism is that people could begin to miss God in the process. Even in a clear, Love God, Love Neighbor, Love the World, processes we cannot assume that people’s affections are being directed to God and not the self oriented consumption of the simple programs of the church. Simple is better in that there is less to consume, but if the content of the programs is lacking the church can be running people through a process and not be accomplishing much of any real substance. It seems more could have been said about the theological vision within the ministry process, how people change, but perhaps that is another book and this is a critique of something that is not the intended purpose of this volume. Yet this was a concern when interacting with the text.

Conclusion

Overall Simple Church is a practical and helpful read. For churches which are overloaded with events and programs the book will prove to be invaluable. One thing not mentioned by the book, nor so far in this review is the gift simplicity gives to the Christian who desires to spend time with lost people. When life together as a church is simplified people will have more margin to spend time doing things with and for people outside of the church community. In an era where Christian people must go to others in the world, simplicity will only help that process. I did take to heart the good news given by the authors on page 230 – “Attention church planters: this information is good news for you. While you have little money, own no land or buildings, you are able to design from scratch.” Amen, and amen.

Notes

1. This of course is the marketing tag line for Papa John’s pizza, another company cited in the introduction.
2.Robert Coleman’s Master Plan of Evangelism is still a very helpful and simple book on the method of Jesus. Additionally, Ajith Fernando’s recent Jesus Driven Ministry is a good study on the way of Jesus from a study of the gospel of Mark.
3. For more on Stark’s recent work see my review here

References:

Rodney Stark, Cities of God The Real Story of How Christianity Became and Urban Movement and Conquered Rome (San Francisco, Harper SanFrancisco, 2006)

Spiritual Leadership

Reading a bit today on Spiritual Leadership.  Came across this section in John Piper's The Mark's of a Spiritual Leader.

Lazy people cannot be leaders. Spiritual leaders "redeem the time" (Eph. 5:16). They work while it is day, because they know that night comes when no man can work (John 9:4). They "do not grow weary in well doing" for they know that in due season they shall reap if they do not lose heart (Gal. 6:9). They are "steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord their labor is not in vain" (1 Cor. 15:58). But they do not take credit for this great energy or boast in their efforts because they say with the apostle Paul, "I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I but the grace of God which was with me" (1 Cor. 15:10). And: "For this I toil, striving with all the energy which He mightily inspires within me" (Col. 1:29). The world is run by tired men, someone has said. A leader must learn to live with pressure. None of us accomplishes very much without deadlines and deadlines always create a sense of pressure. A leader does not see the pressure of work as a curse but as a glory. He does not desire to fritter away his life in excess leisure. He loves to be productive. And he copes with the pressure and prevents it from becoming worrisome with promises like Matthew 11:27, 28 and Philippians 4:7, 8 and Isaiah 64:4.

Very good - sometimes in the Christian community the concern is only for "boundaries" and not "burning out."  It is good to read that some men still like to work.  I do not advocate neglect of relationships, family and children - but the obsession with leisure, me time, and living the good life prevents us from moving forward in the urgent task before us.

Soma, Sex, Solidarity and Fords Day - Aldous Huxley's Brave New World

Today we have another Fact of the Day contribution to Power of Change by FotD editor Timothy Dees.  This one is a classic of literature that turns 75 years old this year, Huxley's Brave New World.  '

Enjoy the summary of this provocative work and reflections on Western culture.  I particularly enjoyed reading this book in high school and found the ending particularly fascinating.  Many thanks to Mr. Dees for including that ending in his ending below.  A must read FotD.

----------------------------------------------------------

STILL BRAVE AFTER ALL THESE YEARS

by Timothy Dees. 

Aldous Huxley's Brave New World was written in 1922, which means that this year is its 75th anniversary.  With this important milestone approaching, it would serve us well to take a second look at this classic work.

Brave New World (BNW) portrays a future world where happiness is king.

God has been banned, art has been stymied, and all has been sacrificed in the name of production.  Gratification is the end-all, be-all of Huxley's imaginary society, and anything that gets in the way of happiness is cast aside.  Monogamy is seen as an unnecessary check on happiness, so "everyone belongs to everyone else".  In fact, reproduction by natural means has been banned altogether.  Everyone is made sterile, and children are produced on an assembly line just like everything else.  In this world of free, non-reproductive love, the only thing that makes anyone blush is natural childbirth, which has become a taboo.  People are designer-made for their jobs.  "Alphas" are given the top intellectual jobs, while lowly "Epsilons" toil away at manual labor.

If a person ever feels conflict or anguish, they merely take soma, a drug with no side effects that keeps people from feeling pain.  

In this environment, two young employees at a hatchery take a vacation to a wild, uncontrolled part of America, where they encounter a young "savage".  This savage was born naturally, and he was exposed to Shakespeare, God, and all the things that the new utopia has tried to eliminate.  He finds himself unable to live in the world, and he eventually chooses to live in exile, preferring pain, complication, difficulty, God, and everything else to the unmitigated happiness that the Brave New World provides.

When Huxley's novel first came out, critics were frosty.  Most reviewers took issue with Huxley's grim portrayal of the future.  "A writer of the standing of Aldous Huxley," H.G. Wells wrote, "has no right to portray the future as he did in that book."  George Orwell described BNW as a "brilliant caricature of the present" that "probably has no bearing on the future."  G.K. Chesterton was also quite harsh: "However grimly he may enjoy the present, he already definitely hates the future. And I only differ from him in not believing that there is any such future to hate".  The literary elite, embroiled in 1920s utopian liberalism, couldn't imagine a future for the world that was anything but rosy. 

But the biologists suspected otherwise.  One Cambridge biochemist put it this way: "Only biologists and philosophers will really appreciate the full force of Mr. Huxley's remarkable book. For of course in the world at large, those persons, and there will be many, who do not approve of his 'utopia,' will say, we can't believe all this, the biology is all wrong, it couldn't happen. Unfortunately, what gives the biologist a sardonic smile as he reads it, is the fact that the biology is perfectly right."

And indeed, it serves us well on this, the 75th anniversary, to discuss just what else was right.  Huxley's vision of a world enraptured with production was spot-on.  If you listen to Marketplace on NPR, you know they play chipper music when the markets go up and brassy, muted trombones when the markets drop.  These days we're quite confident that charts should go up, and we stake our happiness on them.  Whole newspapers are devoted to the rise and fall of production, and an entire class of businessmen devote their lives to production.  The flip-side of the production coin is consumption, and we are nothing if not consumers.

When a problem arises, the answer is more consumption.  After 9/11, we received calls to travel, fly, and use hotels, as if we could merely out-spend the terrorists.  In so many ways, we vote with our pocketbook. 

Huxley also anticipated our age of free love.  If Huxley saw the current environment of birth control, test tube babies, genetic testing, and modern fertility drugs, he would say that we are only a stone's throw from producing made-to-order babies on an assembly line.  And perhaps he'd be right.

Huxley also foresaw the gearing of culture toward entertainment.  In BNW, films have simplified into pornography and action-packed nonsense, and one can scarcely look at modern movies and profess otherwise.  Also, in the drug soma, Huxley presciently anticipated our age of psychological drugs.  Today, doctors prescribe everything from Prozac to lithium for every manner of ailment. 

If, however, we take the book as merely an exercise in crystal ball gazing, we sell it short.  Huxley's book is also an enormous contradiction.  It is a theodicy produced by an atheist, a conservative work written by a liberal, and a utopia that succeeded - everyone was happy, after all - but failed at the same time.

As the book comes to a close, the savage is brought to Mustafa Mond, the World Controller, and they discuss the world that has been created.

This exchange forms the climax and thesis of the book: 

"Exposing what is mortal and unsure to all that fortune, death, and danger dare, even for an eggshell. Isn't there something in that?" he asked, looking up at Mustapha Mond. "Quite apart from God-though of course God would be a reason for it. Isn't there something in living dangerously?"

"There's a great deal in it," the Controller replied. "Men and women must have their adrenals stimulated from time to time." 

"What?" questioned the Savage, uncomprehending.

"It's one of the conditions of perfect health. That's why we've made the V.P.S. treatments compulsory." 

"V.P.S.?"

"Violent Passion Surrogate. Regularly once a month. We flood the whole system with adrenin. It's the complete physiological equivalent of fear and rage. All the tonic effects of murdering Desdemona and being murdered by Othello, without any of the inconveniences." 

"But I like the inconveniences."

"We don't," said the Controller. "We prefer to do things comfortably." 

"But I don't want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness, I want sin."

"In fact," said Mustapha Mond, "you're claiming the right to be unhappy." 

"All right then," said the Savage defiantly, "I'm claiming the right to be unhappy."

"Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind." 

There was a long silence.

"I claim them all," said the Savage at last. 

Mustapha Mond shrugged his shoulders. "You're welcome," he said.

Free Theological Education

 

Reformed Theological Seminary has recently placed some classes on iTunes U.  If you are not familiar with iTunes U it is an effort to provide a delivery forum for education content - institution to student...mostly for free.  Here is the description for Apple.

Tunes U has arrived, giving higher education institutions an ingenious way to get audio and video content out to their students. Presentations, performances, lectures, demonstrations, debates, tours, archival footage — school is about to become even more inspiring.

RTS has several lectures in OT, NT, Theology, and Church History available online for the wonderful price of $0.00.  Can't beat that...

(HT - Justin Taylor)