Control. Fear. Hope.
Mon 24 Apr 2006 by Peter Edman
I just ran across a headline about how many leaders around the world are suffering from low popularity. It reminded me of a favorite book of mine.
Terry Pratchett’s Night Watch has been out for a few years now. It’s one of his Discworld series of fantasy novels, but don’t let that stop you: this is the novel that got critic Michael Dirda to compare Pratchett to Chaucer. The book is that good. What makes it so, at least for me, is the way it helps you think through the limits of leadership and what we can really control. Sometimes things are just complicated.
Hassett Buechner Panel Recording
Thu 20 Apr 2006 by TTF Staff
Senior Fellow Jody Hassett Sanchez moderated the response panel at the April 2006 tribute to Frederick Buechner at the Washington National Cathedral. Links to the audio or video are available here. At the event Buechner read from two of his sermons and the panel talked about preaching, truth, imagination, and the power of words among other subjects.
Responses to Brown
Wed 19 Apr 2006 by Peter Edman
I should start with the disclaimer that I personally am inclined to the camp that thinks the book and movie of Dan Brown’s Da Vinci Code are best ignored lest further efforts to debunk his scholarship and historical claims actually contribute to the publicity campaign. But there’s no ignoring the fact that the publicity he’s already earned from the lawsuits and the dozens of debunking books and websites—combined with the novel’s own narrative drive, the human weakness for conspiracy theories, and the perennial desire to create a more comfortable form of religion—has made it a cultural force to be reckoned with.
Senior Fellow Bill Edgar is taking the lead for a new Da Vinci response site sponsored by Westminster Theological Seminary, The Truth About Da Vinci, which will also be including articles and multimedia from a variety of people we like, including Trinity Forum co-founder Os Guinness. The site looks winsome and non-defensive, attempting, as it says, to create “doubt about doubt.” But Bill & Co. are not the only ones out there—not even the only ones from the Reformed stream of the faith—making a stand.
On the Journey of Faith
Tue 21 Mar 2006 by Peter Edman
In
addition to our own seminar curriculum and study guide, The
Journey, these are books on the journey of faith and the search
for meaning that we recommend. If you have other books or resources
to suggest, please contact the .
The World Is Information
Tue 14 Mar 2006 by Peter Edman
I mentioned Kevin Kelly in an earlier post, and he just popped up again as the editor of an interesting interview in the current issue of Wired. He’s talking with the author of a new book on quantum mechanics who is arguing that the universe is one giant computer (as the Wired editors say in the blurb for the article, thank God it doesn’t run Windows). “The world is information,” says Seth Lloyd. “In the beginning was the Word,” says John. There’s a reason so many physicists are theologians.
Heaven Wins Big—At Least for Now
Tue 14 Mar 2006 by William Edgar
Reflections on the first Narnia film
Senior Fellow Bill Edgar discusses the film adaptation of C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe and considers several factors that will determine its potential for long-term impact on the culture.
Does Democracy Need Religion?
Mon 13 Mar 2006 by Joseph Loconte
Current suspicions about religion are unrealistic—and unreasonable
Senior Fellow Joseph Loconte discusses the recent outcry against religion from European and American opinion shapers and reminds us of some founding American principles that should not be lost—and lessons from history that should not be forgotten.
Why the Sea Is Salt
Mon 06 Mar 2006 by Peter Edman
Now that our curriculum on technology is off to the printer and finalized for the moment as we get ready for the spring Forums, I’ve been finding all sorts of articles and resources that would have made great boxes or readings. I take some comfort in the fact that our framework seems to be able to fit each of them in—in this case, the tendency of technology to do its job, even if you don’t want it anymore; the need to be careful with overpromising technology; and the critical need for a wider purpose for technology than mere blind “progress.” I’m also excited to have the website now, so I can document these items that are useful thinking and talking points for a conversation about technology and the good life.
Item one is the Scandinavian fairy tale, “Why the Sea is Salt,” retold in Andrew Lang’s Blue Fairy Book among many other places (executive summary here). Seems people in the past occasionally took advantage of those long cold dark winter nights to think things through. The wonderful mill—which keeps doing what it is asked to do until stopped, but the user doesn’t know how to stop it—is a great metaphor for technology.
The Price of Wilberforce’s Success
Tue 21 Feb 2006 by Peter Edman
In one of our curricula, we use an 1833 quote from William Wilberforce, delivered from his deathbed on hearing news of the success of abolition.
“Thank God, that I should have lived to witness a day in which England is willing to give twenty millions sterling for the Abolition of Slavery.”
Our notes say that £20 million, the price to be paid to the slave owners of the British Empire, approximately half the value of their slaves, was an astronomical sum in those days. Not being British, I’ve always wondered how much it was worth in dollars. I recently ran across a comparison site, and now I know. Depending on the method of conversion, in 2000 US Dollars the value is between $1.3 billion (retail price index) to more than $42 billion (via a GDP comparison, which may be the more valid comparison). That’s a lot of money. The details are here.
On Technology
Thu 16 Feb 2006 by Peter Edman
These are some of the resources we found useful in considering how to respond to technology as we were compiling our new curriculum, Children of Prometheus: Technology and the Good Life, directed by Dan Russ (and afterwards as well).
