‘Portraits’

Frank Chimero, on our contemporary notions of privacy:

The institutions that call for radical transparency very rarely exhibit it. Facebook will always know more about you than you will know about it. Google will be the only one to know how all your emails coalesce into a more meaningful picture. No one knew PRISM existed until a few weeks ago. We might know that we’re having portraits painted of us, but we will never have the canvas turned in our direction. And, if these painters did turn their easels around, I’m not sure which would be more terrifying to see: a distorted, monstrous version of myself, and say “that’s not me,” or myself mirrored back, reconstituted—the exhaust fumes of my day-to-day life somehow made solid.

By far the most beautiful piece I've read that has come about as a product of the NSA leak.

A Reparable Mount Everest

Riveting story by Mark Jenkins for National Geographic. Here’s an excerpt:

Our team was on Everest to mark the anniversary of [the first American] expedition. Yet as we witnessed, the mountain has become an icon for everything that is wrong with climbing. Unlike in 1963, when only six people reached the top, in the spring of 2012 more than 500 mobbed the summit. When I arrived at the apex on May 25, it was so crowded I couldn’t find a place to stand. Meanwhile, down below at the Hillary Step the lines were so long that some people going up waited more than two hours, shivering, growing weak—this even though the weather was excellent. If these throngs of climbers had been caught in a storm, as others were in 1996, the death toll could have been staggering.

This sort of traffic changes the stakes and has taken quite a toll on the mountain:

Everest has always been a trophy, but now that almost 4,000 people have reached its summit, some more than once, the feat means less than it did a half century ago. Today roughly 90 percent of the climbers on Everest are guided clients, many without basic climbing skills. Having paid $30,000 to $120,000 to be on the mountain, too many callowly expect to reach the summit. A significant number do, but under appalling conditions. The two standard routes, the Northeast Ridge and the Southeast Ridge, are not only dangerously crowded but also disgustingly polluted, with garbage leaking out of the glaciers and pyramids of human excrement befouling the high camps. And then there are the deaths. Besides the four climbers who perished on the Southeast Ridge, six others lost their lives in 2012, including three Sherpas.

Jenkins goes on to suggest a number of ways to “repair Everest.” Among these is the Leave No Trace philosophy, which seems obvious but in practice requires intentionality.

When my wife, father-in-law, and I climbed Mt. Rainier last summer with Rainier Mountaineering Inc., they were all about Leave No Trace and even gave us a special orientation regarding best outdoor practices. It was easy enough to practice on a two-day climb. It’s hard to imagine, though, how difficult that becomes on such a magnified scale (i.e. Everest). That's why it's so important to use a guiding service that is actually built for the long-term.

In the last half-century humanity has had a visible impact on some of Earth’s most remote territories. Here's hoping Jenkins, RMI, and others can help us keep the next half-century's impact invisible.

‘The Barbarians Win’

Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks:

In one respect the new atheists are right. The threat to western freedom in the 21st century is not from fascism or communism but from a religious fundamentalism combining hatred of the other, the pursuit of power and contempt for human rights. But the idea that this can be defeated by individualism and relativism is naive almost beyond belief. Humanity has been here before. The precursors of today’s scientific atheists were Epicurus in third-century BCE Greece and Lucretius in first-century Rome. These were two great civilisations on the brink of decline. Having lost their faith, they were no match for what Bertrand Russell calls ‘nations less civilised than themselves but not so destitute of social cohesion’. The barbarians win. They always do.

‘A Theology Of Revolt’

Richard Beck supplies the answer for the future of progressive Christianity: a theology of revolt.

My summary: get mad.

Exempt From Error

Ed Cyzewski on why “inerrancy” doesn't solve anything:

Instead of pointing the doubters to Christ, the fundamentalists pointed them to the Bible.

Thought-provoking article on a complicated word.

From The Outside Looking In

What will future archaeologists and anthropologists say about us? Jordan Shapiro, on beach-going and other North American rituals:

Our lives are full of habits and rituals that seem ordinary to us. However, often what seems objectively reasonable in the present looks like foolishness when seen through the lenses of a distant culture.

The lesson is not that we’re just as crazy as the ancient peoples we sometimes dismiss as primitive (although that may be true). Instead, it teaches us that we’d be wise to let mythologists and anthropologists help us analyze the unconscious motivations that drive our secular present.

Christianity Needs More Heretics

Tripp Fuller, making a plea for more prophet-like “heretics”:

A Christian can’t relegate faith making it a particular means to cultivate a kinder, gentler, and slightly improved version of the world we are handed. If we are honest about our global situation we know we can’t. In letting a therapeutic faith die it is my hope that the church stop pleading the 5th or silently affirming our world as it is and find its prophetic voice again. We must insist that humanity can dream and create a more just and equitable way of relating as peoples and to our planet. We can do better.

He calls the first group “therapeutic Christians”, the second group “Christian heretics”. If Christianity is to survive another 100 years, it needs more heretics.

Just Be Less Stupid

Ta-Nehisi Coates, writing for The Atlantic:

If you are not around people who will look at you like you are crazy when you make stupid claims about other people's experiences, then you tend to keep saying stupid things about other people's experiences. It is not enough to pay a political price, or even to be shamed into silence. You have to come to believe -- in your heart -- that sincerity itself is not the same as accurate information. It is not enough for you to not be "the party of stupid" or to "stop saying stupid things" you must show some active commitment toward being less stupid.

In other words, being with people who are different than you forces you to ask questions about the way things are. That questioning process causes you to learn. And as you learn you become less stupid.

Ira Glass: Christians Get The Short End Of The Media Stick

Ira Glass, in an interview with author Jim Henderson for Open Culture:

There came a point early on in the show where I just noticed that the way Christians are portrayed in movies and on television is almost always as crazy people, […] whereas the Christians in my life were all incredibly wonderful, and thoughtful, and had very ambiguous complicated feelings in their beliefs, and seemed to be totally generous hearted and open to a lot of different kinds of people in their lives.

Two points:

1. It shouldn't be that surprising that Christians as a whole are misrepresented in the media. More often than not it seems that the most radical in any religious or political group are the most vocal. And the vocal minority gets the most media attention.

2. The interview itself is a great example of how to have an open conversation with someone who doesn't have the same beliefs as you do.

The interview is split into twelve different videos.

Ask N.T. Wright

Rachel Held Evans has been hosting a great interview series on her blog. Today she posted N.T. Wright's response to six crowd-sourced questions. That he even agreed to do this is remarkable and speaks volumes about Rachel's site and audience.

Wright gives a fair treatment to a question about the relationship between the world today and the biblical “New Heaven and New Earth,” as well as gender equality in the church. He sidesteps the questions about open theism and sexuality.

His attitude toward political and theological division in churches is refreshing and constructive:

Beware of ‘camps’.

In the U.S. especially these are usually and worryingly tied in to the various political either/or positions which the rest of the world does not recognise. Anyone with their wits about them who reads scripture and prays and is genuinely humble will see that many of the issues which push people into ‘camps’ - especially but not only in the U.S. - are distortions in both directions caused by trying to get a quick fix on a doctrinal or ethical issue, squashing it into the small categories of one particular culture. Read Philippians 2.1-11 again and again. And Ephesians 4.1-16 as well.

A Papal Rendition Of Apple's WWDC 2013 Keynote

Three cheers for Scoopertino's hilarious rendition of yesterday's Apple event, complete with illustrations and analysis:

I’m just taking my seat as Tim Cook is coming on stage. Not sure why, but he’s wearing a pope hat and he’s being followed by a column of priests.

If you're looking for a more straightforward, less satyrical presentation of the relevant information from Apple's keynote, The Wirecutter has it all in one place.

Someone Actually Says Something Positive About Facebook →

The key to unlocking Facebook's self-fulfilling potential, according to Craig Mod:

Just hide the noise.

Rob Bell Is Jesus; Anyone Who Disagrees With Him Is A Pharisee →

I'm pretty sure I have the analogy right.

Worship That Drives Belief →

Brian McLaren:

Let me make this specific: Too many of our lyrics are embarrassingly personalistic, as if the whole gospel revolved around “Jesus and me.” Personal intimacy with God is a priceless gift indeed, and such a wonderful step above a cold, abstract, wooden recitation of dogma. But it isn’t the whole story. In fact – this might shock some – it isn’t necessarily the main point of the story. A popular worship song I’ve heard in many venues says that worship is “all about You, Jesus.” But apart from that line, it really feels like worship and Christianity in general have become “all about me, me, me,” or maybe “us, us, us” (where us = privileged spiritual consumers in the Western religious industrial complex).

His point is that the gospel is about more than just my personal relationship with God, and the songs we sing should reflect that—even drive us toward that belief.

He makes a number of good suggestions to both diversify the theme of worship and make it more intelligible. Here's one of my favorites:

Second, may I suggest that we be careful about using gratuitous Biblical language – Zion, Israel, go forth, on high, etc., etc.? If there is a good reason to use such language – in other words, if we are using it intentionally, not just for a “spiritual feel,” then fine. Otherwise, if we can find contemporary language and imagery that would communicate more crisply, poignantly, immediately, and deeply to people who don’t already have a lot of pew time … then let’s use it, in the spirit of I Corinthians 14, where intelligibility to the spiritual seeker is a gospel virtue.

Marx And Human Rights →

Kevin Hargaden, writing from Ireland for Seattle's The Other Journal, on how talking about human rights can so easily turn into a selfish endeavor:

Yet what are we to do when such rights language itself becomes hypocritical? How do we respond when rights language serves as a mantra for politicians who merely use it to wriggle out of tight situations? What would a careful and critical Christian appropriation of rights language look like? Marx may be able to help.

The Land As Our Inheritance →

John Mark Hicks explains why the “land” motif in the Bible is so important:

Consequently, the new heaven and new earth as the renewed (new) creation is integral to the plot line of the story of God from Abraham to the [end times]. The earth is the inheritance of God’s people and one day the reign of God will fill it from the east to the west, from the north to the south. The whole earth, unlike its present condition, will be “Holy to the Lord.”

Responsible Foreign Adoption →

Here's an example of the type of humble, informed response I was hoping for from evangelical Christians. The response doesn't come from an adoption expert per se, but its author has adopted two children through foster care and one from overseas. In this guest post for Mere Orthodoxy, one adoptive mother both interacts with Kathryn Joyce's critique of foreign adoption and offers constructive suggestions for responsible adoption practices. The whole post is worth reading, but here are her suggestions in rapid fire:

• Examine your motives
• Think through worst case scenarios and have a plan
• Respect birth order
• Educate yourself

Adopt Local, Dream Global

James:

Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you (NLT)

Christians love this verse because it's straightforward. Apparently though, evangelical Christians have royally dropped the ball on part I of the pure religion initiative—orphan care. Christian overseas adoption practices have recently been accused of taking advantage of lax regulations in developing countries to promote its stateside political agenda. Furthermore, adoption was criticized for being an ideological and agenda-driven obsession, given to corruption, and analogous to human trafficking.

I'll leave it to the adoption experts to continue to battle this one out. My hope is, as always, that the collective Christian response will be humble, informed, and not given to the same unfair tactics often used against Christians.

I would like to offer an alternative to the defensive, knee-jerk reaction to such a critique.

Biblical commands that appear straightforward are complicated by our globalized 21st century reality. Until recently (say, the last couple centuries), generosity was usually a local undertaking. Long-term benefit was readily observed. Now that we can catapult our generosity to the other side of the world, our long-term impact is not as easily discerned and is often misunderstood. Giving responsibly across the world takes a lot more effort.

Giving to a literal neighbor is one thing; giving to a global neighbor, who we may never see, is another thing entirely. And it's when we assume we're entitled to give to whomever we wish that we run into problems.

Tara Livesay has written about some of the cultural issues at play with the adoption of children from Haiti that many from the U.S. overlook. For example: Haitian law requires that adoptive parents have no biological children. Why?

The plausible reason for the law stating no biological children is because we have a culture that presupposes that you won't be able to treat your biological kids and your adopted kids the same. If you have no biological kids you are more likely to fully provide for and love your adopted child.

Our immediate tendency is to assume a law is flawed. We need to fight our ethnocentric instinct and instead ask what cultural or historical dynamics might be at play in the given situation.

I can't offer a comprehensive solution to the ongoing adoption debate, but here are two constructive suggestions for those who still want to help:

Adopt local. It may not be as glamorous as an overseas adoption, but give local foster care and foster-to-adopt opportunities a fair shot. By helping locally, you can be involved in the entire process and should be better equipped to understand the cultural dynamic that caused the need that requires your help. You may even be able to encourage others in your community to get involved.

Dream global. There is a tremendous, worldwide need for adoptive parents. Instead of assuming that U.S. dollars and U.S. presence are the only viable solutions, we need to leverage our creativity and imagination to empower Christians in the developing world to follow the same command that has captured our attention.

On Writing Well →

Dan Barry, on the author of a book everyone should read:

And he is still teaching at 90, holding one-on-one counseling sessions for accomplished and aspiring writers at a round wooden table close to those bookshelves. The only difference is that he can no longer see.

So he listens.

Apps for the 2013 Pepperdine Bible Lectures →

From Malibu:

The mobile application for the Pepperdine University Bible Lectures to be held April 30-May 3, 2013.

Look for the live stream of Dave Clayton's talk on Wednesday, May 1.