Vision
Materialism and Education
“If the humanities in Britain are withering on the branch, it us largely because they are being driven by capitalist forces while being simultaneously starved of resources.” So observes Terry Eagleton in an April 6, 2015 post at The Chronicle of Higher Education (“The Slow Death of the University”). The decline in humanities is directly related to the rise of consumerism, pop culture, and the good life defined in materialistic terms. Who wants to seek out transcendence when, all around, the world insists that getting and spending as much and for as long as you can is the only thing that matters? Consequently, business and science courses swell, and grant money flows their way, while the arts and literature go begging and continue their downward slide into irrelevance. There is no easy way to fix this situation, and universities seemed content to settle into their role turning out workers for the materialistic economy. This sad situation is not an educational problem. It is a worldview problem, and only a worldview revolution can change the sad course of higher education, and of the society that supports and depends on it. 

http://chronicle.com/article/The-Slow-Death-of-the/228991/

Theology and Vision
Speaking of theology – materialism, after all, is a theological worldview – it was refreshing to read Michael Shermer’s explanation for the phenomenon of ISIS. Contrary to the view of the present Administration and most of the political left, Mr. Shermer insists that ISIS is motivated by its religious worldview in all its decisions and actions. He quotes Graeme Wood as saying that “the religion preached by its most ardent followers derives from coherent and even learned interpretations of Islam.” Mr. Shermer agrees with Wood who says the theology of ISIS “must be understood to be combatted” (“Terrorism as Self-Help Justice,” Scientific American, May 2015). ISIS is simply pursuing justice as they understand it from within their Islamic worldview. Perhaps if Christians were more like ISIS in this regard – convinced, clear, consistent, resolved, self-sacrificing, and on the perpetual offensive with respect to their worldview – the problems posed by unbridled materialism and radical Islam might be subjected to more thoughtful scrutiny and responded to with more humane and effective answers.

Disciplines
Philosophy
Crispin Sartwell welcomes what he perceives as a return to realism among contemporary philosophy types (“Philosophy Returns to the Real world,” New York Times Opinionator, April 13, 2015). After so many years being under the influence of postmodern thinkers like Stanley Fish and Richard Rorty, many had given up on philosophy, as well as on truth, the world, and any reality beyond the agreed-upon language and values of any particular group. But, as was obvious all along, postmodernism is untenable, if only because it cannot say anything ultimately meaningful, except within some lonely gnostic corner of the world. Now, across a wide range of disciplines, thinkers are rediscovering the reality of the external world, and not a moment too soon. Climate change has helped to drive this return to the real world, which encourages thinkers to let the world “speak for itself” and to discover from its own existence what it is, and perhaps even who we are. No matter what you think about this, that, or the other, or how you determine to refer to the world around us, climate change affects us all. The real world is real and the same for all of us. Andrew Wyeth, it turns out, was right all along.

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/04/13/philosophy-returns-to-the-real-world/?_r=0

Poetry
Is poetry good for anything? For a small, fairly elite and ingrown cadre of writers and readers, poetry seems pretty important. But beyond their relatively small pale, no one else seems to care. Fault lies on both sides, the one for producing so much awful poetry, and continuing to congratulate and reward themselves for it, the other for not being curious enough to search out and demand better verse. It might help if there were some consensus on the value or use of poetry. Michael Robbins, writing in the April, 2015, issue of Poetry, suggests that poetry should be regarded as “equipment for living.” Poetry can provide consolation for us in times of trial or uncertainty. It does this by reminding us of the power of language and by encouraging us to marshal our language and images against whatever threatens us. He also says that poetry – especially in the form of pop music – can give us a sense of belonging to a community of shared forms, images, languages, and aspirations. That’s not a bad start. Since “art can do much,” as Anne Bradstreet reminded us, we should figure out what its purpose ought to be, in the light of our larger purpose in life, and then make art – good art and poetry – for all we’re worth. But poetry will only be as good as the purpose toward which we bend it. Surely we whose purpose is the Kingdom and glory of God ought to be able to provide poetry that not only consoles and connects, but that does much else besides.

Creational Theology
In a chapter excerpt from her book, Wearing God, Lauren Winner offers a fine example of creational theology. The chapter is entitled, “Bread,” and it can be found in the Spring 2015 issue of Image. Mrs. Winner takes us through a meditative journey focused on bread, culminating in the use of bread to refer to our Lord Jesus Christ. Bread is life. Bread is delight. Bread leads us to consider the wonders of technology, the lessons of history, contemporary challenges of diet and disease, ancient meditations on the absorptive uses of bread, and the connections between all these and God. Bread means work, hospitality, variety, and provision. All bread, and all the side-trails meditating on bread suggests, point us to Jesus. Bread is everywhere, just as the Bread of Life Himself. Bread therefore has the potential for making known the glory of God in a hundred different ways. And if bread can do so much, for and through each of us, how much more glory is there to be discovered which God has hidden in ordinary things of every sort (Prov. 25.2)?

Envoi

Ambassadors of Glory
    Psalm 19.1-4

They’re speaking to us. All created things
ambassadors of glory are to ears
indifferent to their glad reports. The spears
and arrows which commercial culture slings
against us deafen us. Their welcome stings
and stabs distort our hearing. Business sears
our eager eardrums; entertainment blears
audition with the piper’s tunes it sings.
The echo of banality so rings
within us hardly anybody hears
creation’s message. Whether joy or tears,
we take scant notice of the word it brings.
    Throw up a shield around my ears, O Lord,
    and let me hear creation’s glorious word!

From Fault Lines

T. M. Moore