Yes, I've been incommunicando for a while. We've had a lot going on at church, at home, and I've been in the throes of my advanced studies in Ancient Cultures through the University of Stellenbosch in South Africa.
Right now I'm working on a module on ancient philosophy. How do such studies help the church? My primary reason is to make me a better interpreter of scripture. Hellenistic philosophy oozes through the New Testament, and for me to better explain the New Testament, I'd best have a working knowledge of how Hellenistic philosophy was actually practiced. A little tidbit of what I'm working on right now as an example. I'm reading an essay on the contrast of friendship and flattery in the Epicurean schools of philosophy. Apparantly Epicureans were criticized by adherents of other schools (such as the Stoics) for being flattering sycophants to the great leaders and powerful men of the day. Epicureans saw no problem with a philosopher attaching himself to a powerful man as a "house philosopher" for that man. Of course the Epicureans defended this practice, making a distinction between being a sycophant and being a court sage. Now put this context as background to the Paul before Roman Governor Felix (Acts 24: 24-27). The passage tells us that Felix was waiting for money. This of course is true. The whole Roman economy functioned on patraonage, bribes, kickbacks, loans, favors .... from Findlay's depiction in his work The Ancient Economy, it seems like the Roman economy looked ahead to Don Corleone rather than Adam Smith.
But the passage also tells us that Felix kept bringing Paul to speak with him over the course of his two year assignment. Could it be that Felix was treating Paul as his own captive court-philosopher? It was the mark of great men to surround themselves with men of learning. Was Felix trying to offer Paul opportunities to continue on as a court philosopher if he would but tone down his rhetoric? Was he grooming Paul to be part of his entourage? Does any of this background make the tragedy of Felix's incomprehension even more pressing? Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Trying out Posterous
I'm trying out a new social media app called posterous... a way to manage updates to multiple social media applications via one email. More to come later. Russell
Russell Smith
Covenant-First Presbyterian Church
513-621-4144
www.covfirstchurch.org
www.russellsmusings.blogspot.com
Russell Smith
Covenant-First Presbyterian Church
513-621-4144
www.covfirstchurch.org
www.russellsmusings.blogspot.com
Thursday, March 12, 2009
On Friendship: Can we have some categories please
Meredith at YPulse put up this post about friendship status on Facebook. She suggests that some "reverse mentoring" is needed for younger users to teach older users what it means to be friend. Her assertion that friend on Facebook roughly means "someone you know" and we still intuitively have categories of friendships. She writes about:
She has a point. I hear moaning and gnashing of teeth about how social media are destroying our capacity to relate to one another. Meredith's point is that social media (at its best) simply extends what naturally happens. We all intuitively have a range of relationships: compadres, companions, and colleagues; mentors, proteges, and advisors; acquaintences, amigos, and intimates. We have confidantes and we have hangers on. All of these categories and more are under the rubric of "friend" in Facebook.
The problem of "friendaholism" is not that the technology cheapens our relationships. The problem is that of understanding the categories. Of course it would be unseemly to ask people to categorize types of frienships on a tool like Facebook; the question is do people have an understanding of different categories at all? I'm not convinced we do. A cursory scan of the shelf at my local Mega-Book-Mart reveals lots of books on "relationships" -- meaning romance, intimacy, and sexuality. There are shelves of books on working relationships and personality profiles. It's really hard, however, to find books on Friendship.
To offer a contrast, a quick look at Amazon reveals over 400,000 titles with friendship as the theme. The main themes in these titles tend to be 1) stories of great friendships 2) about the friendships of women 3) spiritual friendship. So clearly there's interest in understanding what friendship is and how it operates in our lives.
A look through my own library revealed some stuff. CS Lewis has some stuff on Friendship in The Four Loves. Of course Cicero has a definitive classical treatment on it. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics speaks of it. Richard Baxter in A Christian Directory gives instructions about friendship.
But perhaps the best way to get into this is to ask my friends (no matter what category you place me in... acquaintence or compadre or... well you get the idea): how do we think about friendship?
Comment box is open.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
How in the same way there are people in your life you consider "bona fide BFFs" and others "you air kiss at a party once a year," on Facebook there are some friends you have a "Wall to Wall" conversation that runs on for multiple pages, others you post a message once a year on their birthday, and others still whom you forget were even born. In short, if you interpret "friends" as
Facebookspeak for "people you know," you can pretty much assign the same value system for friendships that you always have. Without cheapening the meaning.
She has a point. I hear moaning and gnashing of teeth about how social media are destroying our capacity to relate to one another. Meredith's point is that social media (at its best) simply extends what naturally happens. We all intuitively have a range of relationships: compadres, companions, and colleagues; mentors, proteges, and advisors; acquaintences, amigos, and intimates. We have confidantes and we have hangers on. All of these categories and more are under the rubric of "friend" in Facebook.
The problem of "friendaholism" is not that the technology cheapens our relationships. The problem is that of understanding the categories. Of course it would be unseemly to ask people to categorize types of frienships on a tool like Facebook; the question is do people have an understanding of different categories at all? I'm not convinced we do. A cursory scan of the shelf at my local Mega-Book-Mart reveals lots of books on "relationships" -- meaning romance, intimacy, and sexuality. There are shelves of books on working relationships and personality profiles. It's really hard, however, to find books on Friendship.
To offer a contrast, a quick look at Amazon reveals over 400,000 titles with friendship as the theme. The main themes in these titles tend to be 1) stories of great friendships 2) about the friendships of women 3) spiritual friendship. So clearly there's interest in understanding what friendship is and how it operates in our lives.
A look through my own library revealed some stuff. CS Lewis has some stuff on Friendship in The Four Loves. Of course Cicero has a definitive classical treatment on it. Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics speaks of it. Richard Baxter in A Christian Directory gives instructions about friendship.
But perhaps the best way to get into this is to ask my friends (no matter what category you place me in... acquaintence or compadre or... well you get the idea): how do we think about friendship?
Comment box is open.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
From the trenches of study: The Bronze Age Collapse
I'm sure I studied about it in seminary, but it was likely from the tangential perspective of establishing the reasonableness of the exodus. Never did I consider it from the perspective of the interconnected cultures of the Ancient World. I'm talking about the biggest historical sea change that you've never heard of: The Bronze Age Collapse.
Of course we're familiar with the disintegration of the Roman Empire (though James O'Donnell's latest book The Ruin of the Roman Empire presents the case that popular understanding about said disintegration is seriously flawed -- more on that book in another post). The Reformation radically transformed Europe, and thus the Americas. The Industrial Revolution plundered the countryside for laborers to move to cities, and certainly we're living through the turmoil and abundance brought on by the electronic information age. But the Bronze Age Collapse seems to overshadow them all.
The scenario was this: for about a millenium, villages had been coalescing into city/states and then into proto-empires. We see the rise of the great Sumerian City States, the Hittites (in modern day Turkey), the Myceneans in Greece, and of course, the granddaddy of them all -- the Egyptian Empire. By around 1500 bc, we see great powers jousting on the global scene and engaging in international trade and diplomacy. Civilization and culture were on the advance. This would be the backdrop for the Biblical Patriarchs.
And then starting in 1200, there's a collapse all around the Mediterranean. For the next 200 years we have evidence of destruction of cities from Troy (Northern Turkey) all the way down to Gaza. Egypt retreats it's armies from Syria and the Levant and Nubia. Society crumbles in Greece and Asia Minor to the point that literacy seems to have been lost for 200 years. The Mesopotamian kingdoms retreat their forces. The sparse records we do find from Egypt and Mesopotamia talk about "sea peoples" in the Mediterranean and "Arameans" in the east. We can imagine other people groups taking advantage of the chaos to plunder and claim other peoples property for their own.
This era makes the dark ages look like a twilight game of capture the flag.
And it is the historic backdrop to the Illiad and Odyssey and the books of Exodus and Joshua and Judges. Truly it could be said that this was a time when there was no king in the land and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Historians debate the causes behind said collapse: a natural disaster, a migration of peoples, an exhaustion of the potentcies of empire? Yet on the other side of it, new stronger political forms arose. And on the other side, we also see the establishment of the united kingdom of Israel.
Looking back we can see the hand of Providence turning the collapse of human empire into the seed bed out of which the state of Israel would arise. And perhaps in that knowledge we can find comfort for our own tumultuous times: that indeed all the nations of the earth are like a drop in a bucket; they are but dust on the scales of God. But as nations rise and fall, the word of the Lord endures forever.
Excelsior
Russell
Of course we're familiar with the disintegration of the Roman Empire (though James O'Donnell's latest book The Ruin of the Roman Empire presents the case that popular understanding about said disintegration is seriously flawed -- more on that book in another post). The Reformation radically transformed Europe, and thus the Americas. The Industrial Revolution plundered the countryside for laborers to move to cities, and certainly we're living through the turmoil and abundance brought on by the electronic information age. But the Bronze Age Collapse seems to overshadow them all.
The scenario was this: for about a millenium, villages had been coalescing into city/states and then into proto-empires. We see the rise of the great Sumerian City States, the Hittites (in modern day Turkey), the Myceneans in Greece, and of course, the granddaddy of them all -- the Egyptian Empire. By around 1500 bc, we see great powers jousting on the global scene and engaging in international trade and diplomacy. Civilization and culture were on the advance. This would be the backdrop for the Biblical Patriarchs.
And then starting in 1200, there's a collapse all around the Mediterranean. For the next 200 years we have evidence of destruction of cities from Troy (Northern Turkey) all the way down to Gaza. Egypt retreats it's armies from Syria and the Levant and Nubia. Society crumbles in Greece and Asia Minor to the point that literacy seems to have been lost for 200 years. The Mesopotamian kingdoms retreat their forces. The sparse records we do find from Egypt and Mesopotamia talk about "sea peoples" in the Mediterranean and "Arameans" in the east. We can imagine other people groups taking advantage of the chaos to plunder and claim other peoples property for their own.
This era makes the dark ages look like a twilight game of capture the flag.
And it is the historic backdrop to the Illiad and Odyssey and the books of Exodus and Joshua and Judges. Truly it could be said that this was a time when there was no king in the land and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.
Historians debate the causes behind said collapse: a natural disaster, a migration of peoples, an exhaustion of the potentcies of empire? Yet on the other side of it, new stronger political forms arose. And on the other side, we also see the establishment of the united kingdom of Israel.
Looking back we can see the hand of Providence turning the collapse of human empire into the seed bed out of which the state of Israel would arise. And perhaps in that knowledge we can find comfort for our own tumultuous times: that indeed all the nations of the earth are like a drop in a bucket; they are but dust on the scales of God. But as nations rise and fall, the word of the Lord endures forever.
Excelsior
Russell
Monday, January 19, 2009
New Species found -- the heavens and earth resound
I see, from time to time, news stories about the discovery of heretofore unknown creatures in remote places. Whether they are cave dwelling critters hidden away for centuries or bizzare entities living in the deep sea, they all capture my interest. That's why this article on today's Yahoo News caught my eye: yet another discovery of heretofore unknown creatures, this time in a deep Australian reef.
I find these discoveries encouraging for several reasons. First, from my theological perspective, God created all things as instruments of His praise and glory. No matter what your perspectives on the process that God used to create, it still holds that in His Providence, He establishes these creatures that have existed for thousands of years outside the knowledge of mankind. And what have they been doing all that time? In their own humble way, they have been living as unique distinctive expressions of God's glory, creativity, power, and goodness. In their own little ways, these creatures have been living Hallelujahs tucked away in the remote corners of creation.
Second, such discoveries never fail to stir a sense of wonder and humility in the hearts of even the most hardened skeptic. As humans we seem to have in inborn sense of awe before the unknown. Such discoveries continue to remind us that this universe is far vaster and more astonishing than we heretofore grasped. Such wonder should serve to expand our understanding of God. God is indeed far bigger and far more grand than we like to admit.... yet His attention to such small details as these creatures shows forth his affection and delight in creation (I'm mindful of the creation story as told in Proverbs 8 -- wisdom alongside God as God forges all of creation -- and doing so in rejoicing and delight in all that is made).
Let us rejoice and be glad that the Creator continues to hold surprises for us in this universe ... and that we may delight in them.
Previous posts of interest on this topic:
Biodiversity to the praise of God
The Instinct to Care for Animals
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
I find these discoveries encouraging for several reasons. First, from my theological perspective, God created all things as instruments of His praise and glory. No matter what your perspectives on the process that God used to create, it still holds that in His Providence, He establishes these creatures that have existed for thousands of years outside the knowledge of mankind. And what have they been doing all that time? In their own humble way, they have been living as unique distinctive expressions of God's glory, creativity, power, and goodness. In their own little ways, these creatures have been living Hallelujahs tucked away in the remote corners of creation.
Second, such discoveries never fail to stir a sense of wonder and humility in the hearts of even the most hardened skeptic. As humans we seem to have in inborn sense of awe before the unknown. Such discoveries continue to remind us that this universe is far vaster and more astonishing than we heretofore grasped. Such wonder should serve to expand our understanding of God. God is indeed far bigger and far more grand than we like to admit.... yet His attention to such small details as these creatures shows forth his affection and delight in creation (I'm mindful of the creation story as told in Proverbs 8 -- wisdom alongside God as God forges all of creation -- and doing so in rejoicing and delight in all that is made).
Let us rejoice and be glad that the Creator continues to hold surprises for us in this universe ... and that we may delight in them.
Previous posts of interest on this topic:
Biodiversity to the praise of God
The Instinct to Care for Animals
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
Friday, January 16, 2009
Will the real John Calvin stand up please?
John Calvin has taken on an odd kind of personality disorder. If you follow the popular renderings of Calvin, you get the impression that he was a very brilliant and very angry man. William Manchester plays into this stereotype in A World Lit Only By Fire. And as I talk with people about Calvin, I hear this kind of impression: "Calvin's Geneva was a dark place." or "Calvin burned Servetus" or "Calvin was a wrathful pessimist who taught that all people are evil."
Contra that are the hagiographies: Calvin was the greatest theologian since Augustine. Not only was he brilliant, but he was an excellent stylist. He was a humble man who always fought against having authority thrust on him.
I suggest that both portraits are vastly skewed. As we enter into the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth, we have an opportunity to re-assess his heritage and legacy. Calvin was a man, a human subject to frailty, foibles, and folly. He would likely be the first to admit that. Calvin would have us look first and foremost to the sovereign God and his majesty. However Calvin was also blessed with great talents and giftedness ... and he would likely rejoice if in our celebration of those talents, we gave thanks to God for the witness of a saint who has gone before.
Contra that are the hagiographies: Calvin was the greatest theologian since Augustine. Not only was he brilliant, but he was an excellent stylist. He was a humble man who always fought against having authority thrust on him.
I suggest that both portraits are vastly skewed. As we enter into the 500th anniversary of Calvin's birth, we have an opportunity to re-assess his heritage and legacy. Calvin was a man, a human subject to frailty, foibles, and folly. He would likely be the first to admit that. Calvin would have us look first and foremost to the sovereign God and his majesty. However Calvin was also blessed with great talents and giftedness ... and he would likely rejoice if in our celebration of those talents, we gave thanks to God for the witness of a saint who has gone before.
Volume 5 of BB Warfield's collected works focuses on that great scholar's writings on Calvin and Calvinism. In his biographical sketch of Calvin, he demonstrates that Calvin's early training as a humanist scholar played out in his later works. Calvin, like Erasmus and other minds of the day, marinated their minds in the classic works of Greece and Rome, and this affected his work. He saw himself first and foremost as a "man of letters" - a writer and commentator on the great issues of the day. Hence his voluminous literary output. Whether we look at the Institutes of Christian Religion (Calvin's great systematic theology, which is still highly readable today -- and which focuses on the practicality of a living faith, rather than a purely cerebral faith) or his large corpus of letters, we find Calvin to be a man using his pen and rhetorical gifts to persuade, encourage, challenge, and confront. Warfield demonstrates Calvin's deft use of satire as a rhetorical tool.... showing Calvin to be a man with more humor than is popularly thought.
What we see in Calvin's Institutes is a "positive programme" for Protestantism. The Protestant cause began in criticism, and might have remained there but for Calvin. However in his Institutes, Calvin presents a vision of faith that is illuminated by a supremely majestic God who lays claim to all of creation. Calvin presents all of life as the sphere of service to God. His comprehensive understanding of Christianity as a whole life endeavor was his great contribution to the Protestant cause. The critics focus on the frailty of the man without recognizing the positive life affirming vision for Christian life that he presented.
I hope this year we'll all give Calvin a closer look .... and perhaps take up the task of reading some of his work. The Institutes are a great place to start.... well worth reading and profiting from the insights of this great teacher.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
The Hundred Year Plan
While in Orlando, I heard about a church that went to the trouble to develop a one hundred year plan. Back then, I thought the idea to be audacious and indeed a bit silly. How could we dare to dream that far into the future? How could we burden our children's children with visions not their own? It seemed to me to be an exercise in hubris.
I've tempered my views a bit. Dramatically changed them, in fact.
Maybe it was reading Brunelleschi's Dome, the story of the construction of the magnificent cathedral in Florence Italy: there I learned about the multigenerational effort involved in completing the project. The building was started with plans for a dome. However the engineers at the time had no idea how to actually construct a dome the size that would be required.... they left that problem for the next generation. Blessedly, Brunelleschi figured it out and designed what none of his contemporaries thought was possible.
Perhaps it was in reflecting on the US Constitution ... a document designed by the founders to last for generations.
Maybe it was from reading this article about 100 year business plans: Medtronic, Toyota, Nestle, SC Johnson are all names that come up as having (or likely having in some internal documentation) 100 year plans.
It could have been this video about the oak beams at New College Oxford. Though the story is completely false, it's still a lovely parable that just makes me think "well, even if it isn't true, it ought to be."
Whatever the case, I've come to the conclusion that audacious visioning for the future is what is in order. Strangely, now is a great time for it. For we are in a time of cultural fragmentation, declining economic opportunities, and general anxiety. What the world craves is a compelling positive vision. This is exactly what the church needs to provide. And I mean something other than the typical vision for political renewal ... Christians of both the right and the left have put too much hope in visioning around politics. I'm thinking whole cultural visioning.
Over the next few days, I hope to tease out this idea in a series of blog posts dealing with some of what I've been reading and thinking. But I'll lay out one principle right now. That hundred year plans necessarily deal more with transmission of values than of specific tasks.
The great for-instance in my own family. My grandfather 10 generations back was a Huguenot refugee who emigrated to Ireland. Most of his children moved to America, and as a way of encouraging family togetherness, he wrote his memoirs in which he told the family story going back 3 generations. He also used the memoirs as an exhortation for his children and their children to stick together, to impart the faith to the next generations, and to compact together for the mutual good. 10 generations later, the Fontaine-Maury society still exists to bring together the far flung members of the family. I have a copy of his memoirs in my library.... and thus through this artifact, Jacques Fontaine continues to exert multi-generational influence.
What are the artifacts that we leave behind .... Andy Crouch talks about this in his Culture Making... and his reflections should give us pause to consider. The hundred year plan finds its root in producing artifacts and customs that will outlast us. And they convey what we find most valuable.
Looking forward to your thoughts.....
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
I've tempered my views a bit. Dramatically changed them, in fact.
Maybe it was reading Brunelleschi's Dome, the story of the construction of the magnificent cathedral in Florence Italy: there I learned about the multigenerational effort involved in completing the project. The building was started with plans for a dome. However the engineers at the time had no idea how to actually construct a dome the size that would be required.... they left that problem for the next generation. Blessedly, Brunelleschi figured it out and designed what none of his contemporaries thought was possible.
Perhaps it was in reflecting on the US Constitution ... a document designed by the founders to last for generations.
Maybe it was from reading this article about 100 year business plans: Medtronic, Toyota, Nestle, SC Johnson are all names that come up as having (or likely having in some internal documentation) 100 year plans.
It could have been this video about the oak beams at New College Oxford. Though the story is completely false, it's still a lovely parable that just makes me think "well, even if it isn't true, it ought to be."
Whatever the case, I've come to the conclusion that audacious visioning for the future is what is in order. Strangely, now is a great time for it. For we are in a time of cultural fragmentation, declining economic opportunities, and general anxiety. What the world craves is a compelling positive vision. This is exactly what the church needs to provide. And I mean something other than the typical vision for political renewal ... Christians of both the right and the left have put too much hope in visioning around politics. I'm thinking whole cultural visioning.
Over the next few days, I hope to tease out this idea in a series of blog posts dealing with some of what I've been reading and thinking. But I'll lay out one principle right now. That hundred year plans necessarily deal more with transmission of values than of specific tasks.
The great for-instance in my own family. My grandfather 10 generations back was a Huguenot refugee who emigrated to Ireland. Most of his children moved to America, and as a way of encouraging family togetherness, he wrote his memoirs in which he told the family story going back 3 generations. He also used the memoirs as an exhortation for his children and their children to stick together, to impart the faith to the next generations, and to compact together for the mutual good. 10 generations later, the Fontaine-Maury society still exists to bring together the far flung members of the family. I have a copy of his memoirs in my library.... and thus through this artifact, Jacques Fontaine continues to exert multi-generational influence.
What are the artifacts that we leave behind .... Andy Crouch talks about this in his Culture Making... and his reflections should give us pause to consider. The hundred year plan finds its root in producing artifacts and customs that will outlast us. And they convey what we find most valuable.
Looking forward to your thoughts.....
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
Friday, November 07, 2008
Now Available: Covenant-First Advent Devotional
We're doing something new at Covenant-First for Advent this year. I've asked several of our members, former members, and friends to contribute reflections for an Advent devotinal.
The theme of this devotional is The Call of the King. Centered on the major themes of the Sermon on the Mount (which we'll be preaching through for Advent this year), the devotional ranges all over the Bible. It really shows how the sermon on the mount's themes are woven all through the text of scripture.
Authors include: me, Nathan Wright, John and Liz McEwan, Rod Ford, Rob Heidenreich, Debby Welsh, Mark Holland, Teresa Bradley, Michael and Rachel Ludwig, June Holley, and Donn Rubingh.
And here's the added bonus. As part of our efforts at being technologically saavy, we're printing this devotional through Lulu.com.... which means that all of our extended friends and family are able to order this and go through it with us as part of their Advent preparations.
So, I hope you'll consider purchasing a copy... you can even get it as a PDF download to your hard drive.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
The theme of this devotional is The Call of the King. Centered on the major themes of the Sermon on the Mount (which we'll be preaching through for Advent this year), the devotional ranges all over the Bible. It really shows how the sermon on the mount's themes are woven all through the text of scripture.
Authors include: me, Nathan Wright, John and Liz McEwan, Rod Ford, Rob Heidenreich, Debby Welsh, Mark Holland, Teresa Bradley, Michael and Rachel Ludwig, June Holley, and Donn Rubingh.
And here's the added bonus. As part of our efforts at being technologically saavy, we're printing this devotional through Lulu.com.... which means that all of our extended friends and family are able to order this and go through it with us as part of their Advent preparations.
So, I hope you'll consider purchasing a copy... you can even get it as a PDF download to your hard drive.
Soli Deo Gloria
Russell
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