I might have to take a page from the Red Stick Rant book and put this website into temporary(?) hibernation. The last 2 weeks have been working 10-12 hours/day which is fine. Hard work is part of congregational ministry. But has not left me with much extra time or mental/spiritual energy for posting. As for politics the situation is so bad what more is there to say? The health of this nation – by which I mean liberty opportunity responsibility prosperity security and charity – will not improve until the political-cultural left is removed from power by legitimate democratic means.

And now I have been offered the chance to teach Intermediate (Biblical) Hebrew at Louisiana State University as an adjunct starting this semester. Which is fantastic. But also means less than 5 weeks to prepare! So in addition to (1) full time congregational ministry which has become more demanding as our new co-pastors provide new direction and leadership and (2) part time computer/network support – which lately has been unusually time consuming because of the issues involved with getting two Mac computers to play nice with our Small Business Server 2003 network environment – add (3) teaching one course at the university which means both class time and extensive preparation.

Maybe I could just get in one or two posts a week. But cannot promise that.

Before turning off the light – hopefully temporarily – let me list some of the things I was hoping to address. Just so you know what I have been thinking and reading about.

Review of New York Metropolitan Opera performance of “Die Walkuere” by Richard Wagner. Quick summary = One does not normally expect to enjoy 5 1/2 hours of Wagnerian opera! But truly this performance/production will go down in history as one of the great triumphs in the history of opera.

Review of New York Metropolitan Opera performance of “Madame Butterfly” by Gioachino Rossini. Quick summary = Fascinating and excellent performance. An utterly heartbreaking and tragic story that raises cross-cultural issues as well as the (past?) problem of American colonialism.

Review of “Super 8″. Quick summary = Loved it so much paid to see it twice.

Review of “X-Man First Class”. Quick summary = Awesome.

Review of “The University in a Single Atom” by the Dalai Lama. Which I read primarily because it was a gift from my sister. Quick summary = Excellent and illuminating. Christians who are interested in (a) the relationship between science and religion and/or (b) understanding Buddhism do well to read this.

The Southern Baptist Convention’s recent resolutions on immigration and ministry to (illegal) immigrants. Quick summary = Rather surprising and leaves many people in the odd situation of regarding those Southern Baptists as too liberal!

Allen West versus Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Quick summary = There are more effective ways to rebuke the political-cultural left.

Modest proposal for how English language Bibles should translate Hebrew tsdaqa(h) and Greek dikaiosyne.

Terence Fretheim on the book of Exodus and to what extent scholars and pastors and teachers may misunderstand and even misrepresent biblical law and covenant theology.

Andrea Da Firenze (1343-1377) Descent of the Holy Spirit

Truth, Translation, and Translucence: <Traduttore (no) Traditore!>
(or)
The Flesh/Word Became Word/Flesh and
Pitched His Language Among Us
(Acts 02)

Richard M. Wright
Church of the Nations
Pentecost Sunday (A)
June 12 2011

Everyone speaks French. Not really. But we think my father is funny.

For five years my family lives in England. My family does not travel very much. But during those five years we take many trips each year to different parts of Great Britain and to different countries in Europe. Spain / France / Italy / Germany / Belgium / Luxembourg / Switzerland. Now my dad can speak a very small amount of French. And what we think is very funny is that no matter where we go no matter what language people speak in that country we visit my dad tries to speak French. Because if people do not speak English and we do not speak their language for some crazy reason my father thinks maybe French will work.

One of my favorite stories is when we are in Rome. We are walking from our hotel to the coliseum. We walk by this very ordinary looking church. And there are cars and people everywhere. Something special is happening. So my father walks up to a police officer. Tries to ask him in French what is happening. Does not work. So my dad – the master of all languages – in his best Italian points at the church and says (shrug). The police officer points at his watch and says Il Papa! Il Papa! The Pope! The Pope! The Pope is coming to visit this little church.

Not everyone really speaks French. But my dad tries.

In our Bible story for this morning from the book of Acts chapter two no one speaks French. Not everyone even speaks Hebrew or Aramaic or Greek. Not everyone speaks the same language.

When the day of Pentecost comes, they are all together in one place. ² Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind comes from heaven and fills the whole house where they are sitting. ³ They see what seem to be tongues (Greek gloossai) of fire that separate and come to rest on each of them. ⁴ All of them are filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to speak in other tongues (gloossais) as the Spirit makes them able. ⁵ Now there are staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶ When they hear this sound, a crowd comes together all confused? amazed? because each one hears them speaking in his own language (Greek dialektos).

Today is my favorite day in the Christian calendar. The Day of Pentecost. The day when the family of God celebrates and perhaps experiences again when God sends the Holy Spirit upon the early Christian church. Last week on Ascension Sunday we hear the story of how Jesus appears to his followers after his resurrection for forty days. He shows them that he is alive. He teaches them about the kingdom of God. He tells them Wait for the gift my Father promised which you have heard me talk about. You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you. And you will tell people about me in Jerusalem (your home city) in Judea (your home province) in Samaria (the country or province next to yours) and to the ends of the earth.

There is a small but very powerful very important detail in this story that almost no one notices or talks about. Think about this for a moment. You have all these people from different provinces different nations different cultures who speak different languages. The story tells us they are all Jewish. Maybe there is one language that they all can use. Maybe they all know Greek or Hebrew although probably not. Maybe the followers of Jesus can speak in Greek or Aramaic and the Holy Spirit can make all these people understand one language.

But the Holy Spirit does not bring all these people together by making them the same. By making them one culture or able to understand one language. The Holy Spirit does something much more interesting. Makes the disciples able to speak in other languages so that each person can hear the good news about Jesus in his or her own language.

As if God respects the different language cultures nations that are there in Jerusalem. God does not say “Okay let’s see we have Africans Asians Europeans – all of you will now be the same. We have people who speak Greek Latin Chinese Korean Swahili Japanese Polish – all of you will now speak French”. No instead God says “Yes I want all people everywhere to know me worship me serve me. Yes I want all of you to experience my love healing forgiveness and salvation through Jesus my son. I want all of you to receive the power of the Holy Spirit. All of you to be part of the family of God. But I do not want you all to be the same. I want you to be a church of different cultures languages and nations”.

So we have this huge gathering of people from different provinces nations and cultures. They proclaim who God is and the wonderful things God has done through his son Jesus – they do this in different languages that reflect their different cultures and traditions. We know from the rest of the book of Acts that these different people go back to their home provinces and countries and form Christian communities that preach teach worship and serve in different languages. They find ways to understand and serve Jesus Christ that are appropriate for their different cultures.

In a way this is the great contradiction(?) of Church of the Nations. Bible study and worship in simple English. English Conversation. But our goal is not in fact to become American or speak only English. Part of our mission is to help everyone learn about and/or grow in the Christian faith. To be a place that helps people understand and live within American culture. But(?) to respect and encourage you as people with your own culture who continue to have your own language of the heart.

Stephen Freeman is a pastor in Tennessee. Two years ago he wrote an article on his website that changed even more how I look at language and culture. He wrote:

“That the Bible can be translated says something about language. It is interesting that the Christian faith has always translated the Bible.

I believe sometimes a translation will reveal things that are true that could not have been seen in the original language. There are relations between words and ideas in a language that are only in that language. I believe we should not ignore such relations and the meanings they create simply because the same relations and meanings do not exist in the original languages. These meanings are not enough for the official teachings of the Christian church. But they can sometimes be part of what the Bible reveals to us”.

It might be possible to translate the Bible or a song of worship or an act of worship or a work of art of a book about the Christian faith into your language or your culture. And not only does that translation or song or art communicate the truth of God. But it can also communicate new ideas and new meaning that is not in the original. Tradutore no sempre traditore – the translator is not always a traitor.

Stephen Freeman writes this is because in the Christian faith a word or an action or even a picture is not just a word or action or picture. There is something more. Words and actions and pictures are windows through which we can experience what they represent. They are transluscent.

Yes we gather to worship God to study the Bible to learn about to grow in the Christian faith in simple English. Mostly. But we do not give up and we do not lose our national or cultural or linguistic background. In fact let us embrace and celebrate and understand better our own language and culture. So that we are better able to let the Holy Spirit proclaim to us and in us and through us the wonderful acts of God and most of all what God has done through Jesus Christ his son.

Remember Tucson? How heated political rhetoric was somehow responsible for the shootings? How even mentioning targeting could give someone ideas? Remember the fine (seriously) words President Obama spoke at the memorial service?

Charles Krauthammer once again helps us understand better how President Obama operates in “Demagoguery 101″.

The El Paso speech is notable not for breaking any new ground on immigration, but for perfectly illustrating Obama’s political style: the professorial, almost therapeutic, invitation to civil discourse, wrapped around the basest of rhetorical devices — charges of malice compounded with accusations of bad faith.

This.

And while politicians may often distort or misrepresent the facts one does not often catch them making statement that are one hundred percent verifiably false. Jim Geraughty calls out President Obama for managing achieve a new high score for outright falsehood.

CBS’s Mark Knoller, covering a town hall on the economy with the president this morning, reports: “President Obama blames high unemployment rate on ‘huge layoffs of government workers’ at federal, state and local levels.”

This is completely wrong. Extremely and mind-bogglingly wrong. Epically wrong.

…

Again, the numbers are stable, and even indicate that local government employment is increasing, not decreasing.

Obama is not even a little bit right. Will anyone call him out on this?

Good question.

For the record am not accusing him of lying because that requires being able to divine what someone is thinking. We can be generous and suggest lazy ignorance combined with a desire to say whatever in order to score political points with a particular audience.

You can tell a lot about a person by the pronouns they {sic} use.

Victor Davis Hanson invites us to notice something about the speech our president gave after Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan:

The problem of first-personalizing national security is twofold. One, it is not consistent. Good news is reported by Obama in terms of “I”; bad news is delivered as “reset,” “the previous administration,” “in the past”: All good things abroad are due to Obama himself; all bad things are still the blowback from George W. Bush.

Ace of Spades HQ takes this a step further and compares the heavy use of the first person singular pronoun with a speech then President Bush gave after the capture of Saddam Hussein.

President Bush’s speech is completely outwardly directed. He speaks of the momentous occasion and gives all credit to the military and the intelligence community. There is no attempt to highlight his part in the story. Quite a contrast.

I know the above seems harsh. But we need to be clear about the nature of this administration.

For some reason I have not been terribly interested in commenting on the curious resurgence of terrorist activity within the United States over the past oh 16 months or so. Even though the way politicians journalists and commentators have reacted is simply astonishing.

Dennis Prager wins the prize for the money quote in his piece “The Left Is Unable to Confront Evil” at National Review Online:

Liberals are certain of the tea partiers’ motives, yet they find Islamic terrorists inscrutable.

The left – he argues – does not understand evil. And is therefore unable to confront it.

Prager does not explain however why this is so. But perhaps that question will be addressed in a separate article.

When Americans peacefully disagree with their government they are misunderstood and misrepresented as stupid evil and violent. But when people commit or attempt to commit acts of true violence our political leaders with the collusion of the mainstream media either (1) ignore it or (2) attempt to understand and portray it as something other than what it is.

I am out of coffee. At least I still have Kenyan tea!

Been deeply troubled by coverage of the illegal immigration bill in Arizona. I have never had strong feelings one way or the other and still do not. My small congregation is mostly legal immigrants. But the way Arizona and this law have been maligned and misrepresented shows that once again the left is not interested in truth or in understanding the opposition.

Speaking of you can’t have an opinion unless you are a member of that group interesting how many people who do not live in Arizona have an opinion about this. Victory Davis Hanson hits another home run in “Deconstructing the Outrage”.

Tim Wise asks us to imagine if the Tea Party were black. Which is a very odd way to phrase a sentence when you think about it. The way he describes the Tea Party movement is already mostly imagination. But we do not have to imagine the angry violent rhetoric already coming from the left on immigration reform. The governor of Arizona being beaten in effigy. Protesters threatening to take up their work tools against anyone who supports the immigration law. Imagine if the Tea Party movement did these sorts of things.

H/T Althouse and Ace of Spades HQ

Elizabeth Scalia aka the Anchoress warns us that the left is going to be as obnoxious as it can hoping to provoke true liberals aka conservatives into an angry and self-defeating response. And wonders if the Democrats truly are secure in their power why they feel the need to cry “racist” at every turn?

Gay Patriot wonders if we are seeing the beginning of the end of the left playing the raaaaacism card. Personally I doubt it.

For example Leigh Scott argues that some on the left are normal people who are just trying to do the right thing but are lied to on a daily basis. So when they malign and misrepresent the opposition – which happens to include us their friends – we should look on it as a cry for help and an opportunity to educate. He may be right. But my experience is that at least half the time it only makes the situation worse and ends up destroying a friendship because the other person is so fanatically convinced that if you disagree with leftism you must be evil and stupid. And whatever reasoned argument backed with accurate information you present – including your own background and life story which most certainly does not fit their narrative – is only going to be twisted into further proof that yes you must be evil stupid and racist.

I had a most remarkable experience last night.

For weeks I have heard on occasion news reports about foreigners being brought to the United States with promises of good paying jobs – the sponsoring “agency” providing safe housing and so on. And then these foreign workers get shunted around from what was promised to something less, their “agency” or supervisor keeping their paychecks, the poor guys are basically broke and stranded and at the mercy of their employer/supervisor/agency.

I trust you have heard these stories too right?

Met some last night. Oh yeah. An agency offering employment with good pay and opportunities to learn English and American culture. Pay them something like $1400 in fees. Pay another $1000-2000 for your air tickets. Arrive in America – no one picks you up at the airport like promised (although I did see the fine print) so they shell out more money for taxi and hotel. Then $400 to cover deposit and first month rent on a shared apartment. Good paying job at hotel? No sorry you will work in the kitchen at a fast food restaurant. Forty hours per week with some overtime to make as much as possible during their four months? Nope – they get 32-36 hours per week. Supervisor receives checks, takes out rent, gives rest to these foreign workers. They are hoping – at best – to break even after enduring 4 months of this heck.

They cannot afford cars. Walk to work – 30 minutes each way (often in Louisiana summer heat). Six to seven guys in the apartment. Almost no furniture besides beds. I did not even see much in the way of bedding. (The apartment itself is large, quite nice, and in a relatively safe complex.)

This is pretty bad. (Could be worse… but still this is pretty bad.) Lured to America with a bait and switch. These people shell out gobs of money for either no real return or even a financial loss. “I hate this country” is how one said he feels. Someone is making good money off this. Apparently one finds these operations only in nations with low standards of living – no French or German university students in this program no sir.

These foreign workers do have some freedom. They can quit. If they do… they are then completely on their own (to find new employment, place to live, and so on). And they will never see their last paycheck which the supervisor/agency will keep.

I could name names – of the local business that is employing these foreigners, of the company whose name/letterhead I see on the documents shown to me. Trying to figure out what if anything I can or should do.