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Sunday, 1/5/14
Education
Ann W. Astell outlines the educational thinking of the 20th-century Carmelite nun, Edith Stein, in her excellent article, “From Ugly Duckling to Swan: Education as Spiritual Transformation in the Thought of Edith Stein” (Spiritus, Spring 2013). Stein understood that “the real purpose of education, in life and in the schools, is to promote a person’s true and transformative self-knowledge, which opens into the knowledge of God’s love.” Education is not primarily an endeavor to inculcate a body of knowledge or prepare one for a vocation, but to lead each individual through that struggle of self-discovery that enables him to become in Jesus Christ the person God created him to be. This is a work of grace, grounded in the revelation of God and devoted to pursuing Him in an ambience of prayer. It requires teachers who are willing to impart themselves and a community within which the learner can be shaped for love. Education is thus supremely a spiritual endeavor: “An education aimed at realizing the natural potential of the individual person necessarily includes, for Stein, the supernatural goal of conformity to the will of God and of human perfection in Christ...” The work of the educator, “like that of an artist, is to see, to call forth, and to support the development of the unique personality of the student, who is simultaneously involved in a vital process of self-education.” This work takes place toward a growing vision of God and awareness of His providential presence and care in every area of life. Such education consists of a continuous dying to our old and false views of ourselves – our desires, aspirations, limitations, priorities, and ways – and a daily and continual reviving and enlarging of our lives in Christ. What a difference it would make if such views were more widely known and practiced within churches today.
Monday, 1/6/14
Culture
Not every change of mind, and of direction, is like that of the Apostle Paul. The example of Irving Kristol’s transformation from left liberal to neoconservative is instructive for believers whose calling is to bring the Kingdom and glory of God to bear on every area of life. Jonathan Bronitsky explains that, contrary to what many believe about Kristol’s “conversion”, it was not a sudden but a gradual movement (“The Brooklyn Burkeans,” National Affairs, Winter, 2014). He writes, “A study of Kristol’s life and work in that period confirms that he began to eschew liberalism much earlier than most observers of neoconservatism have long assumed. It further demonstrates that his early concerns and priorities were predominantly cultural, historical, religious, and philosophical rather than political. Additionally, it establishes that his relinquishment of liberalism was sparked and reinforced by his exposure to what might best be designated the British variant of classical liberalism, or what we now generally classify as conservatism.” During this process Kristol was heavily influenced by his wife, Gertrude Himmelfarb, and by certain religious social thinkers, such as the Christian historian, Herbert Butterfield. Kristol became the most articulate spokesman for the neoconservative movement, but he attained this position gradually, over many years of reflection, study, writing, and conversation, focused not only on politics but on issues of culture and morality in general. It is important that Christians who hope to realize large-scale spiritual, moral, cultural, and social change be neither naive nor impatient. People change gradually, and not always by means of some frontal assault against their cherished views and positions. We need to engage people at various levels, across a broad spectrum of interests, with erudition, rationality, and friendship, demonstrating the love and wisdom of Christ and always being ready, as opportunities arise, to give a reason for the hope that is within us.
http://www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-brooklyn-burkeans
Tuesday, 1/7/14
Literature
Russell Jacoby comments on the celebrations surrounding the 50th anniversary of The New York Review of Books (“The Graying of ‘The New York Review of Books’”, The Chronicle of Higher Education, January 7, 2014). While he appreciates the Review’s dedication to serious conversation and good books, Mr. Jacoby thinks it has become stale politically, ingrown and elitist, sloppy, and self-important. He insists that the Review has drawn on the cultural bank of writers and reviewers over the years, but it has not developed or helped to establish any new talent in the world of letters. It’s a strange review, but it offers counsel for those of us who are involved in similar work, especially where the larger interests of the Kingdom of God are concerned. We must seek to represent the truth from many angles and with as much excellence as possible; and we must pursue opportunities to nurture and encourage those who will succeed us when our time is over. No calling is ultimately about us or our views, friends, or agendas. Every true calling is from the Lord and must be prosecuted with a view to His interests and Kingdom, and in ways that leave foundation and scaffolding upon which others can build and improve. Point taken.
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Graying-of-the-NYRB/143759/
Science
Philip Bell comments on a problem increasingly evident in various quarters of the scientific enterprise: big machines crunching big data without any guiding question or hypothesis (“Machine Envy,” Aeon, 7 January 2014). He explains, “The tools of science are so specialised that we accept them as a kind of occult machinery for producing knowledge...It isn’t simply that the science is dependent on the devices; the devices actually determine what is known. You explore the things that you have the means to explore, planning your questions accordingly.” As if the scientific community, already willfully blind to realities other than what can be measured and manipulated, needed more encouragement in its commitment to tunnel vision. Mr. Bell prefers a return to big questions rather than enslavement to big machines: “The faddish notion that science will soon be a matter of mining Big Data for correlations, driven in part by the belief that data is worth collecting simply because you have the instruments to do so, has been rightly dismissed as ludicrous. It fails on technical grounds alone: data sets of any complexity will always contain spurious correlations between one variable and another. But it also fails to acknowledge that science is driven by ideas, not numbers or measurements — and ideas only arise by people thinking about causative mechanisms and using them to frame good questions. The instruments should then reflect the hypotheses, collecting precisely the data that will test them.” When Christians, with their big God-driven ideas, were pioneering the paths modern science continues to tread, they used their machines to confirm their worldview. Science still does this, but the machines being used today are constructed within a framework of mere materialism. It seems likely, therefore, that the masses of data they produce will be employed to reinforce that worldview. Francis Collins’ work in mapping out the human genome is a good example of a believer being trapped by a secular methodology into conclusions that compromise the Christian teaching about man. Perhaps if he had asked bigger questions, based more squarely in a Biblical worldview, the data he observed, using the big machines at his disposal, might have led to completely different conclusions.
Thursday, 1/9/14
Neuroscience
A little indecision is not necessarily a bad thing. Recent neuroscientifuc studies appear to show that, given fairly equal choices, the brain prefers to slow things down (Steve Fleming, “Hesitate!”, Aeon, 8 January 2014). Of course, tests set up by neuroscientists only measure brain activity. They cannot tell us whether any other factors – such as a soul or the Spirit of God – might be involved, but neuroscientists assume no such realities exist. So is the brain making our decisions, or are we? And if the brain, what factors internal or external to it determine its preferences, leaving all our thinking the product, ultimately, of the Big Bang? This is both the dilemma of science and of the Christian worldview. The latter cannot simply dismiss the evidence of science, although science readily dismisses the contribution of theology, leaving it unable to answer questions except from a purely materialist perspective. And this, in the end, can only ever be inconclusive and unsatisfactory.
Friday, 1/10/14
The Myth of Evolution
The naturalistic world view, for all its scientific prowess, cultural hegemony, and political might, will actually be the ruin of civilization. Not because it isn’t impressive and widely entrenched, but because it dares God to stand by His Word, which He will. Those who spurn Him, preferring their own gods and ways to Him and His, will end up the victims of their foolhardiness and rebellion. C. S. Lewis rightly diagnosed the problem when he wrote, in The Weight of Glory, “Has it come to that? Does the whole vast structure of modern naturalism depend not on positive evidence but simply on an a priori metaphysical prejudice? Was it devised not to get in facts but to keep out God?” Indeed it was, and it does. But we can pray that increasing disillusionment with the existing consensus and opportunities for dialog with thoughtful Christians might cause many who are presently ensnared in this worldview to find the liberty and satisfaction Lewis found in the Gospel: “I am certain that in passing from the scientific points of view to the theological, I have passed from dream to waking. Christian theology can fit in science, art, morality, and the sub-Christian religions. The scientific point of view cannot fit in any of these things, not even science itself. I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because by it I see everything else.”