If I were to list my 10 favorite books there would be one science-fiction novel on that list:

The Dispossessed by Ursula LeGuin.

It tells the story of Shevek who is a physicist on Anarres which is a nonauthoritarian communist society. Theoretically no government. No money. And no laws as such. Shevek travels to the homeworld Urras of which Anarres is a moon to complete his work on a general unified field theory of time. At first a pampered honored guest of the A-Io government he escapes his hosts in order to support a general strike. The government uses military force against the strikers. Shevek manages to escape and survive and eventually seek asylum at the Terran embassy.

The ambassador from Terra says to Shevek:

Perhaps Anarres is the key to Urras… The revolutionists in Nio, they come from that same tradition. They weren’t just striking for better wages or protesting the draft. They are not only socialists, they are anarchists; they were striking against power. You see, the size of the demonstration, the intensity of popular feeling, and the government’s pani reaction, all seemed very hard to understand. Why the commotion? The government here is not despotic. The rich are very rich indeed, but the poor are not so very poor. They are neither enslaved nor starving. Why aren’t they satisfied with bread and speeches? Why are they supersensitive? … Now I begin to see why.

Yes I know. Another political post.

• A couple paragraphs from my blog post about America and Africa? I write like Stephen King. Kewl.
• A couple paragraphs from my sermon yesterday on Genesis 18? I write like Cory Doctorow. (Not a clue.)
• A couple paragraphs from my article on Israelian Hebrew and its possible influence on Late Biblical Hebrew? I write like Isaac Asimov. Hey.
• It gets better(?). Different paragraphs from the same article? I write like Dan Brown.

Well there is a certain perverse consistency here. Stephen King and Isaac Asimov. Yay! But Dan Brown? Ugh.

Rooster on path during hike through Lao Shan

Rooster talks with me.

What are you doing today?

Walking in the rain.

- 2010/06/10

Path through bamboo near Taoist temple on Lao Shan

Through the bamboo path

Only wet grass remembers

Friend of Lao Mountain.

- 2010/06/10

The new “V” series totally rocks.

In a recent episode Father Jack, Erica, and Hobbes have a prisoner – a human ex-soldier who works for the “V” and recently shot and killed a human supporter of the Fifth Column. They have a dilemma. They desperately need the information he has in order to save lives there are in immediate danger. He will not divulge the information. Should they torture him or not?

That was the moment I saw them in a new way. Each represents a different facet of the human psyche – or perhaps a different approach to being human. We have Father Jack who represents purity/nobility/sacrifice/morality. We have Hobbes who represents force/violence/ruthlessness. And we have Erica who represents the pragmatic synthesis – how often does she decide what the group does? Perhaps the super-ego the id and the ego. I still do not know how Morris the V fits into all this.

Father Jack believes torture is wrong. “Do not torture – even if there is a ticking bomb and torture is the only way to stop people from getting killed”. On this occasion he backs off and walks away. Hobbes will do whatever it takes no matter the morality or consequences. Last night he said it well. “You can call yourselves freedom fighters or rebels. Face it people – we are now terrorists”. Erica sometimes goes with Jack sometimes with Hobbes. Sometimes tries to find a balance between the two. Use violent force – but restrained and guided by morality.

I am not sure how Morris fits into all this.

Let me share what I recently posted on facebook:

I think Father Jack is one of the coolest characters I have seen in years (although he sure was a dunce last night). Not some stupid cookie cutter idiot… See More minister like we often see in entertainment. The guy rocks.

Consider the core group: Erica, Jack, Hobbes, and Morris the V (whose name is seldom spoken – odd). Each (except for Hobbes) is a well written well rounded character. They stand on their own. But I hypothesize that each represents a different facet or approach. Similar to the 4 hobbits in Lord of the Rings (Frodo is compassionate/suffering, Sam is bold/judgmental, Merry is valiant, Pippin is youthful/foolish). Or Kirk, Spock, and McCoy in Star Trek (logic, emotion/passion, synthesis?). Perhaps Jack is idealism/compassion, Hobbes is ruthless/violence and Erica somehow represents the pragmatic/balanced synthesis – and in that schema who the heck is Morris?

In a way each episode shows how the different “faces” of humanity – or different approaches to dealing with the V crisis – interact and ultimately play out. Sometimes Jack’s pure nobility wins the day (“always do the right thing”) – but last night it sure bleeped things up. Sometimes we judge Hobbes as too ruthless and unrestrained – but sometimes boy is he right. And Erica? Still don’t know how Morris fits in.

Recently my mind has been on the issue of morality ethics versus(?) virtue ethics. During March and April I led a series of Bible studies on the book of Ecclesiastes. What I shared was drawn heavily from the work of William Brown with whom I had the privilege of studying that biblical book in seminary. Biblical scholars universally agree that Ecclesiastes is an example of what we call wisdom literature. So far so good. But what is the theological center of wisdom literature? Proverbs seems so different from Job different from Ecclesiastes different from wisdom Psalms. What could possibly be a common thread in all of them? Brown suggests wisdom literature is about character – the shaping and reshaping of character.

And a critical component of character is virtue.

This is important because of the distinction between virtue and morality.

Virtue involves what kind of a person you are – not just whether you obey a set of rules. Now some Christians would object. The Bible include moral teachings – rules if you will – that we must follow. But those same good Christians would remember the insights of Paul. Good rules do not by themselves make good people. And the fruit of the Spirit is this – followed by a list of virtues or character traits rather than rules.

A system of morality that focuses exclusively on rules and principles can account for motivations and intentions to act on them only on an ad hoc basis. Conversely, one cannot conceive of character traits except as including dispositions to act in certain ways according to moral principles… Yet the cultivation of virtue is of primary necessity when it comes to situations that demand choosing between conflicting principles of duty or revising working rules of right and wrong. It is precisely this necessity that suggests the primacy of “virtue ethics” in moral discourse: Rules can never be exhaustively specified so as to preclude the need to judgment that extends beyond the rules themselves. Even when moral rules are adequate guides to conduct, they merely constitute the form of morality, not its point. (William Brown, Character in Crisis, 13)

Do note that Brown does not argue against the value of moral rules (get reference/citation).

During the Bible study series I shared that Ecclesiastes challenges and deconstructs traditional wisdom. Good behavior does not always produce good results – such as material prosperity. But Ecclesiastes does not leave us with nothing. It offers a new(?) set of virtues. The two I most strongly emphasized are joy and reverence. I told the class that if they remember nothing else please remember that Ecclesiastes preaches joy and reverence – and this is good news for the modern and even post-modern world. I will return to this in a forthcoming post.

Reverence.

One of the most important books I have read during the past decade is Reverence by Paul Woodruff who teaches at University of Texas – Austin. When I was on the planning committee for the Greater Baton Rouge Federation of Churches and Synagogues annual prayer breakfast we brought Woodruff to give the main address several years ago – and it was arguably the best prayer breakfast I attended since I have been here. Which is ironic because it was the least religious/theological presentation to the prayer breakfast. Which is one of the key points of his book Reverence.

Reverence is a virtue. Simple enough. Rather than a moral rule. A moral rule might say “never make fun of the government”. Woodruff argues that sometimes reverence requires us to make fun of the government – when our national leaders are acting like tyrants that is when they are not governing with reverence. A moral rule might say “never ever kill another human being”. Woodruff does not argue that reverence sometimes requires us to fight and kill but he does argue that it is entirely possible nay essential that soldiers who fight and kill be reverent. “It is reverence that moderates war in all times and cultures, irreverence that urges it on to brutality” (Reverence, 14).

Now what does all this have to do with “V” (2009)? Great question.

I do not know.

But I wonder if the dynamics in “V” (2009) – the interplay between Jack, Erica, and Hobbes, perhaps along with Morris – are related to this distinction between morality and virtue. How do they decide exactly what to do in each situation? Torture the prisoner or not? Kill another human being or not? Shoot down a shuttle or not? Warn another human being of a possible attack or not? Simple morality does not answer those questions – or rather it does answer them but in ways that leave our heroes unable to act in defense of humanity. But virtue might guide them in these situations. What kind of people are they? What virtues do they exhibit? And how do those virtues guide them to make the good decisions in these different and complex situations? Perhaps more precisely how do virtues guide them to act well upon the decisions they make?

I have been wanting to share some of these thoughts for at least a couple years.

Wednesday night prayer meeting. Been looking at the post-resurrection stories. Luke 24 leading into Acts. Walk to Emmaus. Then the resurrected Christ appears to the disciples in Jerusalem.

Although the structure of Luke 24:36-49 is nearly identical to that of Luke 24:13-35 the emphasis is quite different. The Emmaus story emphasizes experiencing the risen Christ in the holy meal we call Eucharist or Communion. The Jerusalem story emphasizes the corporeality of the risen Christ.

Consider this question I asked of Church of the Nations on Sunday and of University Baptist Church on Wednesday. What would be wrong with the following? God sends Jesus to show us what God is like. Jesus teaches us a whole bunch of really nice things about being nice to people. Jesus dies. His immortal soul returns to God. One day we also will die and our immortal souls will return to be with God forever in heaven.

End of story.

What exactly is wrong with that? It is logical. It is coherent. It is consistent. It is not so difficult to believe. And quite frankly it is how many modern people Christian or not look at the Christian faith. As Fred Craddock points out in his commentary on Luke in the Interpretation series this is because many people still presume the Greek concept of the immortality of the soul. That is why some interpret the resurrection of Christ solely in spiritual not physical terms.

But that is not the story the New Testament gives us. The New Testament insists on something very strange that quite frankly would seem unnecessary if the purpose of Christ was no more than to teach us God loves us and we should love God and other people.

The New Testament insists on resurrection of the body.

The Jerusalem story in Luke 24 is at pains to emphasize this.

They were startled and frightened, thinking they saw a ghost. Jesus said to them, “Why are you troubled, and why do doubts rise in you minds? Look at my hands and my feet. It is I myself! Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have”. (24:37-39)

“It is I myself!” As if to say if Jesus is a ghost and has no body he is no longer himself. Or perhaps it is him but he is less than himself. If the human being is a union of body and soul then Jesus seems to be saying if he is now a soul (or spirit or ghost) without a body it is no longer (entirely?) him. A human being is not complete without a body. A soul no matter how immortal is not enough.

This is precisely what one finds in an astonishing text by J. R. R. Tolkien published long after his death: “Athrabeth Finrod Ah Andreth” in Morgoth’s Ring (History of Middle Earth, volume 10) edited by Christopher Tolkien. Anyone who cares about the writings of Tolkien must have this volume. You can manage without the other supplementary volumes but this one is crucial.

It tells the story of a conversation between Finrod Felagund the elven king and Adanel the wise woman. The conversation revolves around the fact that Men are mortal. They grow old and sick and die. Adanel insists this is not the way they are supposed to be. That once they were immortal like the elves. Finrod refuses to believe this because it does not make sense. Not when you think carefully about it.

(Finrod) “To us your claim for Men is strange, and indeed hard to accept, for two reasons. You claim, if you fully understand your own words, to have had imperishable bodies, not bounded by the limits of Arda, and yet derived from its matter and sustained by it. And you claim also to have had hroar and fear [bodies and souls/spirits] that were from the beginning out of harmony. Yet harmony of hroa and fea is, we believe, essential to the true nature unmarred of all the Incarate: the Mirroanwi, as we call the Children of Eru”. (315)

Any Orthodox/orthodox Christian would recognize and understand this concept. We are not souls/spirits that happen to inhabit bodies and at death the soul/spirit goes away and the body no longer matters. God likes bodies. God created bodies. God created human beings to be a union of body and soul/spirit (Genesis 2). And to those who belong to God in Christ the body is an instrument of the spiritual life. Not its enemy!

Back to Luke 24. We have addressed complete human being (including Jesus!) = body + soul. Now back to the importance of physical resurrection. Why insist on it so much? Does it not complicate what would otherwise be a very straightforward and much easier to believe story about Jesus the great teacher who comes and dies and lives forever spiritually?

I know that many scholars and Christians insist on two points. First that the resurrection vindicates Jesus. Jesus always said he would be raised from death. If he was not raised from death then he would have been a liar and we could not trust him. While that is true and important I do not think that completely explains the importance of resurrection. Physical resurrection has an important apologetic/forensic value but surely it is much more than that. Again it was not necessary. Jesus the great moral teacher never had to bring it up just to prove that he was who he said it was. So clearly we are dealing with something more.

The second point is it represents victory over death. Jesus defeated death. So we also will defeat death. Again I suggest this is extraordinarily important and true. But it might still not quite answer the question. Because we could still just as easily talk about eternal life solely in spiritual terms. Sure we defeat death. After we die our souls live forever with God in heaven. No death. Tada!

But no we have this strange insistence on physical not just spiritual life beyond death. The defeat of death includes defeat of physical death. Why is this so important?

There is a point at which Finrod says something to Adanel that to me was most astonishing. Toward the end of their conversation after Finrod leaps to the insight that Men represent and achieve the healing of Arda Marred.

“Since Eru will surely not suffer Melkor to turn the world to his own will and to triumph in the end. Yet there is no power conceivable greater than Melkor save Eru only. Therefore Eru, if He will not relinquish His work to Melkor, who must else proceed to mastery, then Eru must come in to conquer him”. (322)

Yes you realize that Finrod somehow conceives of the Incarnation of Eru within Arda and within time. But what shocked me was the above argument. Is Eru going to “relinquish his work to Melkor” and just let Melkor win?

Okay Melkor. You have ruined and corrupted physical creation. Whatever. It’s all yours. Take it. Have your little kingdom of misery and death. At least I get all these souls of elves and men that I will take somewhere else.

Why is physical resurrection so important? Why not just emphasize the salvation and immortality of the soul?

Because otherwise we are saying that God does not care about the physical creation. He will relinquish it to Satan  chaos evil and death. At least he gets our souls that go off somewhere to party with God forever. But the world can go to pot.

To deny the physical resurrection of Christ and ultimately of ourselves is to deny the victorious love of God for all that he has created. Including the physical world.

It helps to know this is a remix of a rather good song “Empire State of Mind” by Jay-Z with Alicia Keys. Which itself incorporates an original song “Empire State of Mind” by only Alicia Keys.

H/T Ace of Spaces HQ.

Our excellent minister of music and senior adults asked me to begin our Maundy Thursday worship gathering last night with an “overview of the story of salvation”. The idea being to set the events of Holy Week in the context of the entire Bible.

This is how I wanted to begin:

Said Frodo, “That’s the way of a real tale. Take any one that you’re fond of. You may know, or guess, what kind of a tale it is, happy-ending or sad-ending, but the people in it don’t know. And you don’t want them to”.

[Sam replied:] “No sir, of course not.Beren now, he never thought he was going to get that Silmaril from the Iron Crown in Thangorodrim, and yet he did, and that was a worse place and a blacker danger than ours. But that’s a long tale, of course, and goes on past the happiness and into grief and beyond it – and the Silmaril went on and came to Earendil. And why, sir, I never thought of that before! We’ve got – you’ve got some of the light of it in that star-glass that the Lady gave you! Why, to think of it, we’re in the same tale still! It’s going on. Don’t the great tales never end?” [emphasis added] (J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, “The Stairs of Cirith Ungol”)

But this is what I said:

Holy Week. Jesus enters Jerusalem. The Passover meal. The trial. The crucifixion. The cross. Death. The tomb.

Holy Week is part of a larger story. Not a small part it is the most important part but a part nonetheless of the story of creation. The story of God and his relationship with the world that he made.

That in the beginning God created human beings in his image for a great purpose. To live in close relationship with God with each other and with the world that God made. In Church of the Nations we often say God created us to manage the world with God and for God. But the first human beings disobeyed God and fell into sin. The close communion they enjoyed with God with the world with each other all fell apart and became broken. And since then we have seen the results of this falling apart. Sin suffering evil brokenness and death.

But God did not give up. God is good and loves humankind. The story of the Bible is the story of God bringing this broken world and broken human beings back into relationship with himself. And when the time was right God the Father sends his only Son Jesus Christ who becomes a human being. Shares our humanity. Experiences everything we experience but does not sin. Is obedient to God his Father to the point of death when he offers himself upon the cross in order to bring us back into new and healed relationship with God.

Through Jesus Christ we can be what God created us to be. Through Jesus Christ we have communion with God. And with one another.

My wife and I watched “Stargate SG-1″ religiously.

Religiously?!?

I sorta kinda got into “Stargate Atlantis” after a while.

Now we have “Stargate Universe”. Great concept. And some friends said to check it out it’s pretty good.

This weekend I watched all the episodes of “Stargate Universe” available online.

Sorry but I was disappointed. It has some good points. Concept. Special effects. Creative story devices. Some of the characters are interesting. But the end result is dreary depressing and most importantly boring. Found that after the first 10 minutes or so I would be looking at something else while the episode continued to play. Part of what made “Stargate SG-1″ work so well was the moments of humor. Oh sure plenty of drama and action anger and sadness. But even the most miserable “oh man we are so gonna die horribly at the hands of the Goa’uld” episodes had some humor to lighten the emotional load. “Stargate Universe” so far as I can tell does not. And no Eli the uber-geek does not quite cut it.

Although I have to admit now that Rush has been marooned on a desert planet…

Sorry. As loyal as I am to the “Stargate” brand just cannot stay with this one.

Ah yes a poem about cleaning up after the dog. Guess who walks the dog in our family? And yes letting everyone see you use the bag is important.

Birthday of Chaim Potok. This got my attention because Potok is one of my favorite writers and I have read most of his books. He is one of the people I draw upon for my theology of the importance of silence. His books also help us understand the Jewish religion. Most of my teachers were Jewish and so I have a special respect and affection for the Jewish religion and people.

Premiere of the opera “Madame Butterfly” by Giacomo Puccini. Did terribly until Puccini made some changes and then presented it again later that year.

And a great quote that every preacher should heed:

A good sermon should be like a woman’s skirt: short enough to arouse interest but long enough to cover the essentials.

Word! From Ronald Knox born this day in 1888.

Today is Ash Wednesday. Today we enter Lent.