Gleanings
Items of interest on faith and culture from around the Internet
Sire on Wright
Fri 01 Sep 2006 by Peter Edman
Dr. James Sire has a review in the current Christianity Today on Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense by N. T. Wright (Harper San Francisco, 2006).
I’ve mentioned this book in other posts, but I have not yet reviewed it here. In “Echoes and Voices from Beyond,” Dr. Sire essentially captures my thoughts on the book as a whole. It really is excellent. I have a few quibbles on Wright’s understanding of economics, but they do not detract from this overall recommendation.
Perspective, Perspective
Thu 20 Jul 2006 by Peter Edman
I am struck by the tone of the arguments over the stem cell veto by President Bush. Others have said most of what needs to be said, but I do want to link to this post on the weblog of Ignatius Press, publisher of the books of Cardinal Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI.
After Carl Olson summarizes the one-sided and utterly histrionic (or else cynical) rhetoric of Mr. Bush’s critics, he refers us to a book by then-Cardinal Ratzinger, which has a quote on technology that is definitely going into a future revision of the technology curriculum (so many books, so little time). The quote below is from Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures.
Gates and Buffett and Carnegie
Fri 07 Jul 2006 by Peter Edman
John Miller, author of a book on the Olin Foundation, has a commentary in the Wall Street Journal of 7 July 2006 on the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. I am with him in agreeing that it is better that Warren Buffett give his money to the Gates Foundation rather than spend it himself on global population control.
In “Open the FloodGates,” Miller argues that the Gates family should follow the Olin model at least, and either give the money away during their lifetime or arrange for it to be done so within a couple decades after their death. This is certainly what Andrew Carnegie would have advised, I expect, seeing what has become of his foundations.
Definitely worth a quick read. But let me also comment on a few items of interest.
Irony
Mon 19 Jun 2006 • Responses: 1 • by Peter Edman
A quick comment here on a situation of high irony. I’ve been tangentially aware of a debate going on between Kevin Kelly and John Updike.
I have sympathies with both sides of this argument on print versus pixels, but I find it seriously ironic that now that we have reached a point where technology via the Web permits us to say what needs to be said regardless of length and without concerns for the costs of printing and distribution, we must access it via technologies that most people seem to find uncomfortable for extended reading.
In the case of our website, I’ve tried to pick colors that are easy on the eye, and I have also created a stylesheet that should allow you to print out any of our articles to your own printer at a convenient type size. Try it out.
RIP Jaroslav Pelikan
Tue 16 May 2006 by Peter Edman
I was sorry to read this morning of the death of Yale theologian and historian of religion Jaroslav Pelikan.
I recently read his 2005 book Whose Bible Is It?, which is a useful and well-balanced primer on the history of the Bible and its readers. He also begins to explain some of the ways we are finally moving forward in our understanding of the Bible after the modernist/fundamentalist controversies of the twentieth century. I’ve been planning on writing a short review of it for Implications, and will probably still do so in conjunction with a later piece. I certainly commend his books to our audience—they are by and large easily accessible and definitely worth your time.
McClay on Auden
Fri 12 May 2006 by Peter Edman
Historian and humanities professor Bill McClay has an article in the Weekly Standard and the Ethics and Public Policy website, “Grappling with God: The faith of a famous poet.” in which he reviews a new book on the Christian wrestlings of W. H. Auden. It’s an important review of what looks like a solid book.
Also worth noting on Auden is an essay in Alan Jacobs’ Shaming the Devil, a collection about which I’ll be writing more shortly.
Faith Ensures a Future
Fri 05 May 2006 by Peter Edman
In an excellent piece from April, Cardinal Pell, the Archbishop of Sydney, assesses Islam and the West. This is precisely the tone—nuanced, respectful, confident, cheerful—I wish I heard more from Christians when considering their cultural context.
In ”Islam and Western Democracies,” Cardinal Pell makes a useful survey of the history of the relationship of Islam and Christianity and considers the resources that each side brings to bear. He offers both an optimistic assessment and a pessimistic assessment of the chances for reform within Islam—and what is important, adds in a realistic and vibrant sense of Christian hope for the future. He also touches on the often vexed question of whether Islam and Christianity and Judaism worship the same God and the question of the respective influences of culture, religion, and politics.
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.
On the origins of technology
Thu 15 Dec 2005 by Peter Edman
In researching our forthcoming curriculum on technology, I am pleased to be running across more and more articles like this one, from The Chronicle of Higher Education.
In “How Christianity (and Capitalism) Led to Science” (2 Dec 2005), Dr. Rodney Stark sets out the thesis of his new book, The Victory of Reason : How Christianity Led to Freedom, Capitalism, and Western Success (Random House).
When Europeans first began to explore the globe, their greatest surprise was not the existence of the Western Hemisphere, but the extent of their own technological superiority over the rest of the world. Not only were the proud Maya, Aztec, and Inca nations helpless in the face of European intruders, so were the fabled civilizations of the East: China, India, and Islamic nations were “backward” by comparison with 15th-century Europe. How had that happened? Why was it that, although many civilizations had pursued alchemy, the study led to chemistry only in Europe? Why was it that, for centuries, Europeans were the only ones possessed of eyeglasses, chimneys, reliable clocks, heavy cavalry, or a system of music notation? How had the nations that had arisen from the rubble of Rome so greatly surpassed the rest of the world?
The article is well worth the time. It also corrects some misperceptions about Southern Europe and Catholicism and takes issue with the whole concept that the Reformation was the sole source of capitalism. Several of our Fellows are talking about this topic, so expect to see more on this from us in the future.
Eco on Secular Credulity
Mon 05 Dec 2005 by Peter Edman
Novelist and agnostic Umberto Eco has a lovely essay in the London Telegraph a couple weeks ago. In “God isn’t big enough for some people,” he highlights Chesterton’s observation on belief.
It’s worth the time to read through.
Human beings are religious animals. It is psychologically very hard to go through life without the justification, and the hope, provided by religion. You can see this in the positivist scientists of the 19th century.
They insisted that they were describing the universe in rigorously materialistic terms—yet at night they attended seances and tried to summon up the spirits of the dead. Even today, I frequently meet scientists who, outside their own narrow discipline, are superstitious—to such an extent that it sometimes seems to me that to be a rigorous unbeliever today, you have to be a philosopher. Or perhaps a priest. . . .
We are supposed to live in a sceptical age. In fact, we live in an age of outrageous credulity.
Eco concludes with a comment that the Christian faith is an absurdity (albeit a logical and coherent one). And this is an essentially true statement. It just happens to be a true absurdity.
