Sunday, 12/1/13

Science
American high school graduates are increasingly unprepared for the rigors of a college science education. More and more advanced science degrees are going to foreign students – whose education here is significantly funded by U. S. taxpayers – who return to their native countries in search of the kind of research and work opportunities which (increasingly) are not available here. “America needs to strengthen math and science programs from kindergarten through grade 12” in order to prevent America’s scientists and engineers from  being “surpassed by US-educated competitors in other countries that are more serious about teaching their youngsters” (Harold O. Levy, “Brain Exports,” Scientific American, December 2013, p. 13). Science, being the key to economic success, must be given even more emphasis in the life preparation of children than it already enjoys. What will have to be diminished or cut in order to facilitate such a demand?

Art
In chapter 4 of his book, Christianity, Art and Transformation (Cambridge, 2001), John W. de Gruchy explains the aesthetic views of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, especially as these developed during his imprisonment. He came to embrace a “polyphony of life” in which theology, ethics, and aesthetics combine to create a whole, free, responsible person, grounded in Jesus Christ. To achieve this it is necessary for one to be firmly rooted and established in spiritual disciplines and, at the same time, wholly engaged in the world of work, friendship, and the Church: “If the ‘discipline of the secret’ anchored Christian involvement in the world within the tradition of Christian faith, then ‘aesthetic existence’ enabled Christians to be at home in God's world without feeling guilty about enjoying art, friendship and play, even at a time of political turmoil and struggle” (p. 167). Here is just a part of de Gruchy’s important argument for the role of the arts in Christian discipleship and Kingdom living. 

Poetry

Rod Jellema rescued an otherwise uninspiring symposium on poetry and spiritual formation in the Fall 2013 issue of Spiritus (“Grounding the a Spirit”, pp. 255ff). He showed that the impulse to poetry is a function of the image of God in us and the desire to create: “I encounter the miraculous any time my mind and imagination brush against the knowledge that poets create because they imitate their Creator, in whose likeness all humans are created. Image-bearers explore who they are creating...The spirit humans seek is within them. It wants to create...The work on a new poem is a new spiritual experience. Human imagination aids the inadequate intellect to form what was never there. When the process goes right, though it creates a mere shadow of Creation, it gives off a tingling fascination: mortals actually breathing spirit into a substance, a knot of words called a poem, in the very process of being made. And once in a while we can say, in lower case, it is good.” Robert Cording, in that same symposium (“Tying Shoelaces with the Holy Spirit”, pp. 260ff), is also helpful when he describes poetry as an act of attention or attentiveness to the world, in order to discern the presence of God and His glory there: “For me, poetry’s act of attention, undertaken in the spirit of love, tries to create that ‘intensest rendezvous,’ [Wallace Stevens] that moment when the world is restored, as it must be again and again, to its ‘dearest freshness’ [Hopkins]...I mean here our capacity to perceive the fullness which exists in each moment and is always waiting for us to be present to it...”

Monday, 12/2/13

Political Philosophy
Gertrude Himmelfarb reviews The Great Debate, by Yuval Levin, a history and reflection on the argument between Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine over the merits of the French Revolution (“The French Connection,” The Weekly Standard, December 2, 2013). This debate crystallized the distinctions of political right and left. Paine augured for an equality of rights, finding in an ideal of what might be called “natural man” or man in his primal estate, the origins of all thinking about equality. Naturally, he opposed all forms of culture and social organization which he regarded as limiting or denying those rights. Burke argued for the moral equality of men and insisted that culture and institutions play a shaping and conserving role in human development and ought not be cast aside easily. Burke favored moral revolution when that was necessary, but without the wholesale destruction of culture or society. Paine favored political revolution and seemed to believe that an oppressed people, in search of their rights, should be allowed to reduce to rubble whatever they believed was in the way of their securing their objectives. Paine championed the power of reason fettered only by reason; Burke insisted that reason must be tempered by tradition and wisdom. Levin concludes that both men were classic liberals, seeking the betterment of society and the improvement of the lot of all men, but Paine was a radical liberal while Burke was a conservative liberal.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/articles/french-connection_769084.html?nopager=1# 

American History

Jake Boritt’s film, “The Gettysburg Story” (Boritt.com), tells the story of America’s saddest and bloodiest three days with stunning cinematic artistry, combining creative animation with on-site footage from the present-day battlefield. He adds nothing to the story, which is familiar to many Americans, and his contribution does not rise to the level of drama or authenticity of, say, Ken Burns. At the same time, the filming of the battle over the site as it exists today brings the tragedy home, so to speak, vividly and sadly. My interest in the Civil War began 53 years ago, when commemorations of the centennial were everywhere. The scope, tragedy, violence, nobility, and absurdity of the War captivated me then and continue to do so to this day. That men could endure such rigors, face so many horrors, exert so much effort, and sacrifice everything they loved for a cause greater than themselves is a testimony to the transcendent nature of the human spirit, but also to its essential folly. In the Civil War old world ways and beliefs clashed with changing ideals, aspirations, and technologies, and lost. This was both a good and bad outcome, and one from which this nation has never fully recovered. We need such reminders, especially if they lead us to look beyond all our human resources and reason for the healing and renewal we need.

Tuesday, 12/3/13

Art History
Kurt Andersen reports on a remarkable, 10-year project designed to explain the extraordinary detail, accuracy, and beauty of the paintings of Johannes Vermeer (“Reverse-Engineering a Genius (Has a Vermeer a Mystery a Been Solved?)”), Vanity Fair, November 29, 2013). Following a tip by a contemporary artist and an art critic, Texan Tim Jenison set about to demonstrate that Vermeer may have used an optical device – a camera oscura – to get the astonishing detail and perspective for which his paintings are so well known. Jenison’s project involved a tremendous amount of inventiveness and skill on his part, and he may well have proved his point, given the finished work of art he, a non-artist, was able to produce - a quite exact reproduction of one of Vermeer’s own works (“The Music Lesson”). His project is being made into a film – Tim’s Vermeer – to be released next year. Does this project diminish the skill of the Delft master? Hardly. It adds a further dimension of genius to his abilities as a painter. Granted, he may have relied more on lenses and mirrors than just his naked eye for those amazing perspectives, but he still had to execute the lines, colors, tones, and overall mood of each work. And in these, he remains a painter to astound us.

http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2013/11/vermeer-secret-tool-mirrors-lenses 

Psychology

Daniel M. Wegner and Adrian F. Ward are concerned that growing Internet use will undermine systems of collective social memory and render individual memory obsolete (“How Google Is Changing Your Brain,” Scientific American, December 2913, pp. 58ff). They may be right, since access to information on the web is much faster and complete than turning to human memory banks. But if we can remain mindful of what Google is doing to our brains, we might be able to capitalize on the best of Internet access and still keep our personal and social memories sharp. The idea, however, that “We are simply merging the self with something greater, forming a transactive partnership not just with other humans but with an information source more powerful than any the world has ever seen” -  that we are beginning to “blur the lines between mind and machine” - yeah, now that’s a little scary.

Philosophy

William Lane Craig offers eight compelling reasons for the existence of God in the secular journal, Philosophy Now (November 15, 2013). I won’t review these here. I only want to reiterate that they are compelling. The real significance is that they are presented in this secular forum, thus showing that 45 years of hard work by Christian philosophers may at last be starting to bear fruit. Indeed, the entire issue is devoted, in one way or another, to the question of the existence of God. This should provide huge encouragement and impetus to Christian scholars and thinkers in all disciplines to persevere on task and to work to establish themselves amid their secular counterparts. The enemies of our King are striking their tents and vacating the field, the weapons of their warfare having proven to be no match for the Lord’s.

Art

Can art rescue us from the fear bred by terrorism? Geoffrey Hartman hopes so (“Terror and Art: A Meditation,” the Hedgehog Review, Fall 2013). He considers that, in some ways (most notably, film) art has contributed to the fear of terrorism. Thus art should take up the challenge of changing the narrative where terror is concerned: “To regain control we adapt or create a narrative, change a story line.” Art can teach us not to be afraid but to rise above our fears into a higher story line. He credits art with being able to create “a mentality of its own,” and I, for one want to believe he’s right, although not just as a means of coping with terrorism, but of redefining the terms of all life.

Wednesday, 12/4/13

Art History

I confess I had never heard of Bernard Berenson, but that is not surprising. Marco Grassi’s brief overview of his life and contribution to the discipline of art history encourages me in my own work, which sometimes seems disjointed and lacking focus, but which is always striving – like Berenson with his thousands of photographs and lists of Renaissance art and artists – to fit things together into some meaningful whole (“Bernard Berenson Revisited,” The New Criterion, December 2913). Berenson was innovative in his approach to cataloging his subjects and disciplined in pursuing his sense of calling. He made friends with and served collectors as well as art historians and curators. He wrote voluminously, arguing and explaining his peculiar take on the artists he chose to study. As a result, he helped to build out part of the foundations of art history. Don’t be afraid to pioneer new paths in thinking about the life of faith and the worldview of the Kingdom. It may please God for some of your musings, fidgetings, diagrams, and schemes to be useful to others. Do what He has called you to do, and let your work be at all times an offering to Him.

Thursday, 12/5/13

Science

David Dobbs offers a fascinating summary of the latest debate among evolutionary biologists – whether the “selfish gene” acts alone in effecting evolutionary change or the expression (“reading”) of the entire genome, affected by other genomes and the outside environment, forces new genes into action and, ultimately, dominance (“Die, Selfish Gene,” Aeon, December 3, 2013, http://aeon.co/magazine/nature-and-cosmos/why-its-time-to-lay-the-selfish-gene-to-rest/). Dobbs summarizes the “gene expression” view, which argues for circumstances creating a different “reading” of the genome, as opposed to the emergence, via mutation, of a more commanding gene: “Better then to speak not of genes but the genome — all your genes together. And not the genome as a unitary actor, but the genome in conversation with itself, with other genomes, and with the outside environment. If you’re into gene expression — if grasshoppers and honeybees and genetic accommodation are to be believed — it’s those conversations that define the organism and drive the evolution of new traits and species. It’s not a selfish gene or a solitary genome. It’s a social genome.” It will be interesting to see if evolutionists like Richard Dawkins will be able to accommodate, submit to, or repel this view. So much for settled thinking and absolute truth where science is concerned.

Sociology
Is there a prophetic role for sociology to play in the Christian community? This is the question Dennis Hiebert explores in his article, “Problems and Possibilities of Sociology as Prophetic” (Christian Scholar’s Review, Fall 2013). The role of sociology is to describe and interpret conditions in human society and, at the next level, to prescribe appropriate corrective actions. Hiebert insists, “In the best tradition of critical theory, sociology would function as a renewing prophet, speaking to the religious establishment, not for it, and exposing its complicity with social construction, structural evil, and social injustice.” He explains, “The Christian sociologist has dual citizenship in two separate traditions that each in its own way resists the dominant forces of culture, while stimulating the moral imagination about ‘what if.’” I agree with this view, but only if the sociologist is firmly rooted in Scripture and Christian history and tradition, focused on the Kingdom, faithful to the Gospel, persuaded of the continuing value of the Law of God, and committed to building the Church and, with it, a renewed a Christian culture. These, after all, were the concerns of the great prophets of the Scriptures. 

Friday, 12/6/13

Archaeology

“While all scholars must be cautious about what we prove or disprove through what is found through archaeological excavations, we can be encouraged that many archaeological discoveries are totally compatible with a high view of Scripture.” This is Michael A. Grisanti’s conclusion of his review of several archaeological reports that have a bearing on the historicity of the Old Testament (“Recent Archaeological Discoveries that Lend Credence to the Historicity of the Scriptures,” JETS, Fall 2013, pp. 475ff). Critical and minimalist scholars do not hesitate to issue sweeping statements denying the historical reliability of the Old Testament, appealing to archaeology in support of their claims. But these are based more on presuppositions and selectivity in evidence and interpretation than on a full and fair reading of all data. We cannot prove the Bible's historicity by appealing to archaeology, but, in general, and contrary to the claims of certain scholars, archaeology tends more to support the history presented in Biblical narratives than to challenge it. Recent discoveries concerning the beginnings of Israel, the fall of Jericho and Ai, and the period of David and Solomon seem especially favorable to an evangelical understanding of the Bible’s accounts of these subjects. Nothing surprising here, but this paper reminds us that science and history, fairly and properly regarded, will yield conclusions and applications consistent with a Biblical teaching.

Saturday, 12/7/13

Philosophy
John Lachs asks, “Has Philosophy Lost Its Way?” in the November 15, 2013 issue of Philosophy Now, and he answers his question in the affirmative, but with hope. The problem with philosophy today is that it has become irrelevant, having retreated to the halls of academe away from the real issues of life. Dr. Lachs believes philosophers can renew themselves and their discipline by addressing their views to real issues and needs, living what they profess in ways that demonstrate the viability of their views, and approaching and representing their discipline not as a science but as an exercise in creativity, like art or music, grounded in reason, reflection, and conversation. This strikes me as good advice not only for philosophers but for theologians as well. The advantage theologians have, however, is that whereas the history of philosophy is one of conflict leading to discards and reshuffling of the worldview deck, the history of theology, while not without conflict and discarding, has been the construction and improvement of a single line of thought, a worldview which has persisted through every century and is always adaptable, without the need of compromise or deconstruction, to the next round of challenges, whether spiritual, moral, social, cultural, or historical.