Webber: The Divine Embrace 8: Everything must change

Posted on March 9, 2008 by me

Some of you might recognize Everything must change as the title to a rather poor book by Brian McLaren which I reviewed some time back. While McLaren – in my opinion – failed miserably in laying out a case for why everything must change, I think Webber does just that quite well in The Divine Embrace, although he doesn’t use those words.  I am surprised, though, that evangelicals could read and say they agreed with what Webber says, but then go merrily on their way.

This post, by the way, is the 8th article in my Webber series that is discussing the book. These next 2 chapters are entitled My life in his and His life in mind. In My Life in His, he states:

The Christian life does not oppose experience of the transcendant, but the Christian spiritual life is not an experience out of this world, it is an experience of transcendant meaning here and now in this world.

This is a key, I think, in distinguishing between the spirituality of the past and that of the present. We tend to think of transcendant experience in a Platonic sense, where we leave the physical (the secular) and reach the spiritual (the sacred). However, this is to deny the incarnational aspect of God’s work.  God did not only become incarnate once; he continues his incarnational work in his embrace of us and creation. Webber suggests, in fact, that few evangelicals really grasp the concept of the humanity of Jesus. The incarnation is so contrary to our modern sense of Platonic dualism that we have a hard time really accpeting it for what it is.

In Chapter 9, Webber deals with what he sees as the common misunderstanding that spritiual disciplines as the source of our spirituality. I would agree, from my own experience in dealing with various evangelical groups, that this is indeed the basic teaching: if you want to “grow,” you must pray, read the Bible, and so on. There is a constant tension in teaching that we are not saved by “works,” but that we require works to mature, or in some cases, even to continue being saved. However, Webber says that “our goal is never to become spiritual but to live out the spirituality we have” in continuing to live in the divine embrace.

Webber, however, lost me a bit in this chapter as he spends a lot of time discussing a Benedictine approach to the spiritual disciplines. As this chapter is drawing conclusions about how to respond to everything he has said in the prior chapters, I found this suggestion to follow a Benedictine approach a bit anticlimactic and disappointing.  Even so, his points about prayer, study and so on are well-taken.

As I sat in church this Sunday morning, I was very aware of how far the evangelical church has moved from any sort of Biblical understanding of spirituality. The “worship” songs had very little worship content in them (most celebrated our emotions) and the sermon gave us ideas on things we could do to grow. There was no celebration of God With Us, no sense that God is able to do all that He has set out to do.  Not too long ago, I just would have left disatisfied, not really knowing why. Webber has been beneficial in that now I can better see and understand what lies beneath these defects. It helps to know why… I didn’t leave angry. Sad, yes… disappointed, yes… but not angry. That’s progress.

 

 

 

Posted in Church, Reviews, Webber | 2 Comments

Truth

Posted on March 7, 2008 by me

That tree again

For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made. – Paul, Epistle to the Romans

Posted in Random Thoughts | 2 Comments

What we have here is a loss of freedom

Posted on March 7, 2008 by me

When I was young, I was taught that America was the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” Bullshit. America might have been the land of the free, once; but (if it ever was) those days are long gone. That is, unless you redefine “freedom” as meaning freedom for those who happen to be in power, which has been the historical understanding of freedom.

I’m starting to think that very, very few people are really concerned about freedom as an ideal or even a general principle. Again, they may be “all about” freedom, but mainly, people are only concerned for their own freedom, with little concern for freedom across the board (especially if it infringes on their freedom). What makes this work is that many people are also wiling to trade real freedom for a sense of security (even if false) and irresponsibility. For some, a lack of responsibility is freedom: “freedom’s just another word for nothin’ left to lose.” This tendency of sheep to be sheep and leaders to be fascists creates, for some, the ideal state of affairs, and works well for fundamentalist preachers as well as for politicians. Fascism, therefore, is alive and well, all over the place.

From the end of WW II into the seventies, we saw a major cultural shift take place as those really concerned with freedom for different sets of people than those in power, such as blacks, women, and even liberals (prior to this, even the liberals were conservative). It was a good thing, freedom for everyone. But, was it really freedom for everyone, or just others wanting to create new fascisms? I think it probably started well, but these kinds of things often turn into tools of the new wannabe fascists. I won’t mention any names.

Today, it seems we have a variety of fascisms fighting for control. We have, of course, the Homeland Security boys, who have been dismantling our personal freedoms in the name of security and patriotism. On the other hand, we have our education systems, which are under the control of another fascist regime, secularism. Certainly secularists were the oppressed of years ago, but what they’ve accomplished is not equality or intellectual freedom; no, they’ve now become the oppressors. As I understand it, this is the main point being made in Ben Stein’s new documentary, Expelled, which I won’t discuss any further here. While some may laugh this off as an absurd, extremist claim, I think it is impossible to examine the situation objectively and not conclude that there is a type of fascism at play; it’s certainly not “freedom.”

The latest strike in the war against freedom, this too involving an educational system, is this week’s California 2nd District Appellate Court ruling that parents do not have the right to teach their children at home. The Cal. Dept. of Education (with the obvious support of the teachers’ unions) has been fighting the rights of parents for years, under the general principle that “the state knows best.” Now, if this isn’t fascist thinking, I don’t know what is. Yes, I know that it is phrased “in the best interest of the child,” but seriously, if they really cared about the children, don’t you think the state would do a better job of educating the ones they have? We have the worst educated children of any industrialized nation, and homeschooling children are shown to outperform those in public schools. If you were concerned about the children, which side would you be on?

I don’t believe that the state is concerned about the children. I think their first concern is Federal funding – based on head counts – to keep the system alive, and their 2nd concern is placating the teachers’ union. It’s about power – in Sacramento as opposed to the local school boards – and money. I also suspect that it’s about indoctrination, as it seems more money is going into various indoctrination programs (no free-thinking allowed) than teaching kids to read.

You can call it fascism, or you can call it greed; but what it is, is another loss of personal freedom.

Posted in Politics/Current Events | 3 Comments

Entropy and information

Posted on March 5, 2008 by me

Ever since I hit my forties, I have known that I’ve been losing information on nearly a daily basis. Information that used to be readily accessible just simply isn’t there anymore, no matter how hard I rack my brain. For some time, I’ve suspected it’s the 2nd law of thermodynamics at work; that’s right, entropy. My memory is simply becoming disordered and jumbled, just like that drawer full of once neatly wrapped patch cords: when you open the drawer again, you can bet that disorder has set in.

Of course, people try to blame it on old age, but I know better – even when it was argued that entropy only relates to heat dissipation. Like anyone really cares about heat dissipation.

Well, now 2 thinkers from Portland State University (who’d have guessed such smart guys would teach at PSU?) have published a paper with the catchy title, Information Loss as a Foundational Principle for the Second Law of Thermodynamics, in which they show that yes, the Law of Entropy applies to information. In their summary, they state, “the second law exists because there is a restriction applying to information that is outside of and additional to the laws of classical or quantum mechanics.” (I tell you, I’ve lived with that restriction all of my life.)

Duncan & Semura (the authors) believe that the foundational principle underlying the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics can be stated as “No process can result in a net gain of information.” (And no, they are not saying that education is a waste of time.)

This may not seem all that groundbreaking, but it just may be, as the Law of Entropy applied to information has far-reaching implications. I have joked about this a bit, but in all seriousness, I am very interested to see where this discussion goes.

Posted in Faith, Science & Doubt | 2 Comments