Here’s an example, from Gordon College’s president R. Judson Carlberg:

Studying the geological evidence, he said, makes it hard to credit the the "young earthers" who believe that the Bible is the only guide needed to date the earth: "If you accept the young earth argument, you have to think that God is trying to trick us [with the geological evidence] and I don’t think He would do that." Carlberg said he wants to see Christian colleges speak out publicly about their ability to embrace faith and science

I agree that God wouldn’t try to trick us. But how exactly is God being deceptive here?

First, God told you what He did, so it’s hard to see how an old-looking Earth would count as some kind of intentional deception on His part. It would be a little like insisting that an old-looking photograph is clearly an antique, even though the photographer told you that he made it look old in Photoshop.

Second, if this account is just a myth or a moral tale or something, not intended literally, then many later biblical writers, and Jesus himself in fact, perpetuated the literal interpretation of the passage erroneously. Perhaps you could make a case for biblical writers’ error. But if the accounts of Jesus’s words are accurate, then you have God Himself lying to His hearers. In that case, I don’t see how we’d avoid the “God deceived us” problem. Note that Jesus’s comments on the matter are indirect, but they’re loaded with theological import. So if you want to say that Jesus got it wrong, or Paul, or whomever, then you’re going to have to deal with a theology that loses its moorings in reality pretty fast. The problem is that the “literal” account is pretty unambiguous throughout Scripture (and it isn’t just in the so-called ‘disputed texts’ either).

I don’t mind respecting the right of someone to hold a view that gives more credence to evolution than I do. I just wish they’d actually advance some serious arguments (and evidence) to bolster the view, particularly if they want to portray those to the right of them as hopelessly naive.

Douthat argues that American religion has devolved into vague spirituality, divorced from any sort of structure or serious doctrine. His critique of ”spiritual” or “religious” Americans is insightful, but he doesn’t let them off the hook. The New Testament does not present religion this way.¹

These are Dan Brown’s kind of readers. Piggybacking on the fascination with lost gospels and alternative Christianities, he serves up a Jesus who’s a thoroughly modern sort of messiah — sexy, worldly, and Goddess-worshiping, with a wife and kids, a house in the Galilean suburbs, and no delusions about his own divinity.

But the success of this message — which also shows up in the work of Brown’s many thriller-writing imitators — can’t be separated from its dishonesty. The “secret” history of Christendom that unspools in “The Da Vinci Code” is false from start to finish. The lost gospels are real enough, but they neither confirm the portrait of Christ that Brown is peddling — they’re far, far weirder than that — nor provide a persuasive alternative to the New Testament account. The Jesus of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John — jealous, demanding, apocalyptic — may not be congenial to contemporary sensibilities, but he’s the only historically-plausible Jesus there is.

For millions of readers, Brown’s novels have helped smooth over the tension between ancient Christianity and modern American faith. But the tension endures. You can have Jesus or Dan Brown. But you can’t have both.

1. One might argue that it doesn’t quite present Jesus in Douthat’s way either back↩

But when you look a little more, only 20% say that socialism is better than capitalism, and 27% “don’t know.” Rasumussen specifically notes that they didn’t define either term, which leads me to think that this poll might be a better indicator of Americans’ economic understanding than their ideological stance. Rasmussen cites another poll in which 70% of respondents prefer “free markets” over some alternative. Rasmussen interprets this as evidence that Americans aren’t convinced that are markets are free. It might just as well mean that people don’t know what capitalism is, and don’t know what free markets are¹.

It is also interesting that socialism is far more popular among younger people. Perhaps many of the older generations remember the Cold War better, and because they lived then, have a better handle on the differences between capitalism and socialism. It could also be that older people typically have more “skin in the game” and thus actually care enough about economic policies to know their preferences.

It seems that the headline tries to shock by suggesting that support for capitalism is weak. In fact, the details seem to suggest that economic understanding is weak. A comparison to an earlier poll with the same questions would help, but it looks like Rasmussen might be trying for a shock value without much backup.

1. The term “free” has a strong emotive appeal in America, and people often will gravitate toward things that are “free” regardless of whether the thing is actually “free”. One wonders how people would respond if the term were “liberal economics.” back↩

In particular, it seems that ICR is the intended beneficiary of this change, which apparently would allow them to grant the M.S. without state permission or regulation.

Some thoughts:

It is in a sense unfortunate that education has become such a political football. I have absolutely no problem with the state controlling education in a limited sense. It is in the interest of the state to do so. However, the politicization of education means that serious discussions about its goals and procedures will be heavily colored by political rhetoric. Again, the political rhetoric is necessary in the abstract, but modern American political rhetoric is simply too weak to substantively address the weight of a robust educational debate.

I don’t know that I would support this bill. On the one hand, I think it would be a good thing if ICR could issue an M.S. It sounds like much of the opposition is ideological — the education board doesn’t want to condone, or possibly even permit, creationism. But the bill would have far wider consequences. Basically it would allow non-profit, non-government-funded schools to invent and issue whatever degrees they wish. Eugenie Scott, quoted in the FoxNews article, makes this very point, and with good support.

It sounds like ICR is appealing to the state board for the right to issue the degree under the current statute. I think this is the route to take. I’m sure the state representative is well-meaning, but I fear that his approach is likely to further discredit schools like ICR.

In the news article, Scott claims that ICR’s offering is vastly inferior to UT’s or Baylor’s. According to his article, his primary concern is the ICR position that the Earth is only about 10,000 years old. I fail to see how this point is relevant, except in the sense that it treats seriously a view that a fairly decent percentage of Americans actually hold.

I would be curious to see exactly how ICR is pursuing their court appeal with the state board — on what grounds to they claim the right to issue the degree?

So it seems there are actually two issues here. First, ICR claims the right to some sort of equal protection/fairness for their views, religious though they may be. I tend to side with them on this point, at least in a qualified, theoretical sense. Second, the bill at hand proposes to vastly expand the powers non-profit groups to award state-recognized degrees. I tend to oppose this point. It is not in the interest of the state or most of its citizens to devalue degrees. But it looks like several critics of the bill are conflating these two points. They recognize the impact of the bill, but they can’t seem to get away from their instinctive opposition to a creationist perspective. I think the best solution would be for the state to find a way to objectively assess the quality of ICR’s program, without any prejudice for or against a religious position and its implications, and then to grant or deny the degree based on the assessment. The bill is too much

A quote that particularly struck me:

There simply is no substitute here for equipping students to dive deeply into the Scriptures. At the same time, however, it is important to help them dive into the Scriptures in the right way. Unfortunately, many students have only seen the Bible handled poorly by other Christians. Often, their only experience with the Scriptures include it being replaced by therapeutic clichés, utilized and memorized completely out of context, tacked on but not central to a lesson, strangely pieced together with other verses to make a point, proof-texted to supplement a devotional book or song lyric, or largely ignored.

October 21, 2008 (on TARP)

It’s an economic proposal that does nothing to rebuild our economy, but everything to continue the same failed policies of the past eight years – when speculators gamed the system, regulators looked the other way, and lobbyists bought their way into our government. It’s the same failed politics of decrying greed on Wall Street one minute, and then rewarding that greed the next minute with tax cuts for Wall Street corporations and CEOs.¹ It’s the same failed philosophy: give more and more to those with the most and hope prosperity trickles down to everyone else.

Note the shift from October to February. No longer does he decry the “failed policies.” Now he calls them “failed theories.” Nice shift. It lets him ignore what actually happened while attacking the Republicans’ stated philosophy. Thus, since his philosophy is different (so he says), he can claim to be breaking from the past.

Feb 9, 2009 (Press Conference)

“What I won’t do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place, because those theories have been tested and they have failed. And that’s part of what the election in November was all about. Okay?”

“When I hear that from folks who presided over a doubling of the national debt, then, you know, I just want them to not engage in some revisionist history….when they start characterizing this as pork without acknowledging that there are no earmarks² in this package — something, again, that was pretty rare over the last eight years — then you get a feeling that maybe we’re playing politics instead of actually trying to solve problems for the American people.”

“When it comes to how we approach the issue of fiscal responsibility, again, it’s a little hard for me to take criticism from folks, about this recovery package, after they presided over a doubling of the national debt. I’m not sure they have a lot of credibility when it comes to fiscal responsibility.”

The Republicans’ lack of discipline is coming back to bite them, but at this point, I suspect the American public is less interested in the errors of the past and more interested in the prospects of economic improvement. Isn’t that what this whole “looking forward” approach is all about?

1. At least he’s not doing this anymore. Wall Street execs are going to get slammed, even as he decries their greed. back↩
2. Definition, please? I don’t think many people really believe this line. back↩

Though the plausibility of her claim is suspect — there are only about 350 million Americans, and not all of them work — it actually illustrates a problem that this kind of bill creates.  At some point, the number becomes just a word. It no longer refers to a concept that people can get their minds around. Senator Mitch McConnell, the minority leader, commented this week that if you started on the day Jesus was born and spent 1 million (that’s 1,000,000) dollars each day until now, you still wouldn’t have spent 1 trillion (1,000,000,000,000) dollars. A trillion dollars is huge, but it’s hard to get your mind around how huge. The graph here tries to illustrate. The blue column represents 1 trillion. The column to the left is 1 billion. You can barely see it. The gray columns are the logarithm of the numbers across the bottom. I think people tend to think of big number more like the gray bars indicate. A trillion is bigger than a billion, but it’s not that much bigger.

How big is a trillion?

Will all of that, it’s easier to understand why Speaker Pelosi was having trouble. She’s throwing around all these numbers all the time, but like most people, she only half-way understand them. They’re just words now, so an extra billion here or there is just another digit. My thought is that we ought to be very cautious when those who want to spend our money aren’t careful to understand what they’re spending. But more than that, we ought to make sure that we understand ourselves, so that we don’t have to depend on politicians to explain what they’re doing.

The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

First, some background. The movie is based on a popular novel for girls, much like the well-known Princess Diaries. In this story, four teenage girls are preparing to spend their first ever summer apart from each other. Just before they separate, they find a pair of jeans that fits each of them perfectly, despite their obvious differences in size and shape. They agree to share the pants through the summer by mailing them to each other. Each then goes to her summer destination: one to Greece, one to South Carolina, one to Mexico, and one stays home in Maryland. The movie chronicles their experiences throughout the summer.

The script and the directing are generally pretty good. The story is not pedantic; we aren’t always told exactly what is going on, especially when it’s obvious. The solid acting performances help fill in some of the plot and much of the emotion. The photography is very nice. It’s not quite as if you could freeze any frame and print it, but many of the shots are well-composed and thoughtfully orchestrated without seeming “artsy.”

In a brief commentary on the DVD, three of the actresses decide that the movie is superior to many other girly movies because it is more realistic. Without spoiling the plot, I want to address that claim. It is true that the movie deals with more substantive issues than, say, the Princess Diaries. It is also more plausible, though plausibility is rarely a valid standard for a good story. But the actresses say that their movie is better because it doesn’t deal with trivialities like pimples and homework. And yet many teenage girls’ lives are largely consumed by similar trivialities, punctuated by more serious issues. This movie deals with those punctuation marks more than the mundane, which makes it in a sense less realistic. Good stories are not “realistic” in the trivial sense. They don’t trace the mundane.

It is interesting that the girls claim to have been friends for their entire lives, since their mothers took a birthing class together. But their parents never see each other throughout the rest of the film. Perhaps the book is different, but one wonders how four girls from such different backgrounds and having such different tastes could remain friends for so many years. Examining the set pieces in the movie provides some explanation. None of the girls lives in a shack—despite their attempt to seem like ordinary girls, one goes to Greece and the other to Mexico for the summer. Few girls would be able to afford that kind of opportunity.

The movie is supposed to present relevant issues realistically. The issues at stake are serious—divorce, suicide, terminal illness, and love are all directly addressed. But the results are fairly sentimental. It is a feel-good movie, for the most part. Ultimately the solution is unoriginal—be yourself, and enjoy your friends. And yet the friendship aspect gets the most attention, which mostly redeems the story from trite psychobabble. Decisions carry consequences, if relatively minor ones. Wrong actions fail to satisfy desires, and there is forgiveness for wrongdoing. The moral tone is soft and very modern, but not as far off-base as some stories in this genre.

My second thought was that this story wouldn’t make any sense if the characters were boys. Of course, some of the details would have to change, but are their any stories out there about four teenage boys and their friendship? I can’t think of any. I suspect that any such story would devolve into coarse language, rude humor, and over-sexed lust. Or else the “sexual orientation” of the boys would be called into question (though in the case of the girls in this movie, that would be impossible).

Why are there no stories about male friendship? Can boys not be close friends anymore without inviting questions about their motives or descending into crass humor? There two genres that have this kind of male friendship (that I can think of) are war movies and westerns¹ . The problem is that boys have no movies to model good friendship, and rarely look for it in other media. But even other forms of media could be suspect. One could look back at older literature, but unfortunately, even a good friendship there might invite some speculation. Consider even the biblical story of David and Jonathan. There is no indication of any kind of sexual relationship there – indeed, each of them was married to at least one woman – but some contemporary “academics” want to read some kind of illicit connection there.

So I wish that someone could make a movie portraying a close bond between teenage boys similar to the one in Sisterhood. Though the girls’ movie could be better, at least there is something there. If anyone knows of a comparable boys’ movie, I’d love to hear about it, but I suspect that there aren’t many, if any, recent choices.

1. Older westerns. Brokeback Mountain is a famous recent example that suggests even this genre might be up for grabs. back↩

When someone who seems to genuinely love God suffers so much, I am often amazed by God’s grace to her. There is a sense in which such a person has been given a special task that is unusual, both in its difficulty and its reward.

Consider the most famous book in the Bible on suffering: Job. The story of Job describes the pain of a man who suffers for no apparent reason. His friends erroneously accuse him of wrongdoing, assuming that all suffering is the result of sin. Our culture has possibly gone too far the other way, assuming that suffering is never the result of sin. But there are still people who seem to suffer for no reason. Job apparently never learned why he suffered, but we benefit from his experiences through an inspired book describing both his suffering and the dynamics that initiated it. Clearly, the point of Job is that people, sometimes righteous people, suffer—that suffering isn’t necessarily the product of an individual’s sin.

Later, in John 9, Jesus’ disciples apparently hadn’t learned the lesson. They asked Jesus whether the man born blind had sinned or his parents had sinned that he should have been born blind. Jesus revealed their misunderstanding: “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.”

This brief statement clarifies some of God’s working. Sometimes God lets people suffer so that He can show his power in them. God has given them a special honor by allowing them to suffer.

In attempting to be honest, some Christians will observe that no one is really a good or righteous person. Everyone has sinned and thus deserves to suffer in some sense. I think that this notion is wrong-headed and unhelpful. Of course everyone has sinned, but Christians need not do penance. Their suffering has been taken by Jesus. He has given them peace with God, so they can rejoice in hope of the glory of God, even through suffering. Their suffering isn’t easier to explain by observing that they still have a sin nature.

Instead it seems a great honor that God would let them suffer. If some people suffer merely so that the works of God could be displayed in them, then God is letting them be a special vehicle for displaying His glory. God takes his own glory very seriously, so that if God trusts a mere person with his glory, He shows great confidence in their ability to bring Him praise. Of course He provides special grace to those people, but it is nonetheless a great privilege. A vote of confidence from God is the best you can get.

I think this notion plays out in observation. Unbelievers seem sorry and confused, even despairing, when they are confronted with adversity. Christians who suffer from some physical ailment often have extraordinary ministry with others around them; their doctors and nurses and fellow patients remark about their generous and humble spirit. Their ability to affect those around them seems to grow exponentially. I can think of at least four individuals and families who seem to have been given this special ministry in recent years. They are the ones that seem to need ministering to, but they end up encouraging those who try to encourage them. Surely God is with them.

So it’s hard to know what to think and how to minister to those who have lost loved ones, especially after that one has suffered for years. We are naturally disposed toward sympathy, and perhaps some is warranted. But my sympathy is often counterpoised with wonder and admiration, that God would honor these people with such an important task. In this we can see how the Holy Spirit would command us to rejoice in sufferings. The death of such a saint is the final reward for successfully completing her calling.