Finally got a few pictures up from our trip to Skye as well as ones from our party on Saturday night here. Sadly the pics of Amanda’s rocking’ pirate outfit didn’t come out due to my incredibly poor photography skills.
1. It turns out the mattress we’ve been sleeping on is not ours, but the guy’s who lived in our flat before us.
2. This means that we have to return it to him today within a number of hours.
3. We didn’t leave it out for him to collect today with all his other stuff so that means Bryce has to run home after college, tear apart our bed and leave it out for the guy to collect before doing all the other stuff he has to do.
4. Bryce also has to measure our bedframe by precisely 2 pm so that I can call in the measurements to a store and order us a mattress in time for it to be delivered today.
5. That means we have to pay about 150 quid for a new mattress. Money, what money? Ick.
The good news though is that we’ll have somewhere to sleep.
Sadly, I’ve just now read Frankenstein. One would figure being the literary geek that I am that I should have read that book before, that, along with Moby Dick (which, coincidentally is not yet finished and is awaiting my next bout of holiday reading). But alas, you all must have grander visions of who you think you’re dealing with. I am not “reader extraordinaire”, but simply a reader (who also happens to be paying people to do it in the form of another degree).
Anyway on to Frankenstein. Thinking of classic 50s horror movies I expected the “it’s alive! it’s alive” mantra, but was disappointed. I also expected to be scared and yet was again disappointed. The novel is rather of the “what happens if humans had the power to create life” variety of scariness rather than the things that go bump in the night kind of scary. The novel (for those who haven’t read it) is the story of a man who has grand plans to make something of himself. This narrator runs into Frankenstein (who is the scientist NOT the monster contrary to popular usage) in the northern climes. Frankenstein has been chasing his monster in order to destroy him and is found nearly dead. He revives and tells his story of his idyllic childhood and the various stages that lead to his doom to create life. The monster finds Frankenstein a few years after he was created (and after he’s murdered Frankenstein’s brother) and is extremely lonely — after having learned culture (including reading Paradise Lost, Plutarch’s Lives and Goethe’s Werte) he feels unconsolable as humans seek to kill him after seeing his grotesqueness. All he wants from Frankenstein is a mate and he swears he’ll leave the habitations of men (and will lead a virtuous rather than vicious life) if he will have one thing which will sympathise with him. Frankenstein acquiesces and then revokes his promise fearing that the new monster might endanger all of humanity. The monster kills his family one by one as revenge. It ends with Frankenstein dying amidst his revenge of fever and starvation in the northern pole while the monster is finally repentent and vows to kill himself. Thus ends a rather sad story.
I have a few thoughts after reading the book. One is, should Frankenstein have created a mate for the monster? Is such a thing selfish (he thinks he’d be prizing his family above humanity) or not? Should one take pity on something entirely “evil”? Secondly the book brings out the depravity innate within all of us — it’s not so much about science and sympathy but about the baseness of humanity and the dangers of “playing God.” It seems that current issues of cloning and stem cell research could quite easily be our modern day Frankensteinian problem — we’re all in a fuss to get it done but the moment of realisation — the “it’s alive” phrase — will/may be as utterly horrifying as it was for Frankenstein. In the end, I feel sorry for the monster and yet there doesn’t seem to be a way out of a moral quandry that Frankenstein created and without a rescuer, we’re doomed to the same destruction. How’s that for a rather downer post? 
I just discovered that my jacket (that is, the jacket that is best-suited for this time of year) has a major hole in it. I have no idea how it got there or how long it’s been there. Bummer. I guess I’ll have to add a new jacket to my Christmas list. One of these (in black) would be ideal, if anyone is feeling in the Christmas spirit :grin:.
In other news, apparently the World Series just ended. I think someone forgot to inform the world.
I came across this video thanks to my father-in-law. Very funny. (BTW, I’m not sure where Google gets off stealing content from other peoples’ sites, but it can be quite useful.)
Ok, that’s all for now.
I’m listening to an interview with Jamie Smith, professor of philosophy at Calvin College. Smith begins by talking about his frustration with much of what the media reports about evangelicalism, and the people that speak for evangelicalism. But he’s also dissatisfied with with evangelicals:
There is (and I don’t want to be trite or quick about this)…there is a remarkable collusion and identification in this country of being a faithful Bible-believing evangelical Christian, and being a very patriotic, pro-business, pro-war (after 9-11) kind of citizen. And so to suggest, for instance, that Christians might want to rethink their commitment to the sort of nationalistic pride that motivates participation in war, that feels like you’re taking a brick out of the wall of their Christian faith, because they haven’t been able to distinguish the two. Or, if you start saying, “hey, you know, I don’t know if we should be so pro-big business and free markets in the way that we are because, if we think about this a little more carefully, there’s some really serious injustices that are engendered by that…” it’s like you might as well have said, “I’m not sure that Jesus is God,” in some places. That’s so bundled up in a sense of identity and standing up for what’s right that you’re very quickly marginalised as a Christian if you start challenging those areas… In other words…there’s a way in which the core of evangelical faith already provides the resources for calling into question this collusion between the two [biblical faith and patriotism]…When I try to convince people, in an adult Sunday School class, in a local congregation, to think differently, it’s—within evangelicalism, you need to be able to come and say, “look, let’s look at what the Bible shows us about the sorts of things that we should be passionate about; what really matters.” And if you can show that it’s in Scripture, for evangelicals, that’s the authority. That’s ultimately the authority…If somebody says, “well look, the only way you can do this is if you show them from the Scriptures”, I would just say, “what better place to go to?” I’m very happy to derive a very different vision from the Scriptures, and use that as our common starting point.
What’s does he suggest instead?
The thing that I find so maddening in evangelicalism today, is on it’s right wing there is this idea of, sort of, re-Christianizing, or Christianizing the State. In my reading, Radical Orthodoxy would put much more emphasis on the church as being and exhibiting this alternative community without it being a withdrawal…and thinking about, “we’re going to exhibit an alternative economics by the way we distribute resources within the body of Christ”…I’m reading a fascinating book right now by Charles Marsh called The Beloved Community on the history of the civil-rights movement…and you see a lot of the things that I think of, as what would be a radically orthodox community, you can see embodied in something like those early civil rights projects, which weren’t fundamentalists trying to take over the State, but they also weren’t a-political, withdrawals from the State either. It was engaging the public from a confessional perspective.
The key is recognising the false-dichotomy that frequently confronts us, and finding the third way:
One of the things I get frustrated with very quickly is that, “well, if you’re against Bush or against current Republican policies, then you must be a Democrat.” To which I would reply, “no”. I don’t understand why it’s always this either-or. I think what happens is, both sides of that game are playing by the rules of what I would call “state-craft”. I developed this a fellow named Daniel Bell, a Methodist theologian at Southern Lutheran Seminary. What he says is both liberal-progressive Christian Democrats, and the more conservative, right wing Republican Christians, both think that the way to solve problems, and the way to be faithful is to marshal the resources and mechanics and engine of the State. And this is where I think there is an alternative which says, “you know, I don’t want to play by either side’s rules in that respect.” The church, within a civil society, can carve out its own space to be political as the church. That is, I think the church is a political space; it is a polis, in the Greek sense; it is a community which has a specific goal that its aiming for, and it’s trying to embody practices to form virtuous people to achieve that goal. So I think that’s a political space, but I don’t think it should be identified with the space which is the State. When I say “the church”, I wouldn’t want us ever to just think of a local congregation, and I wouldn’t even want us to just think of American evangelicalism. What we’re talking about is a body, a community, which is a trans-national reality; it’s really an alternative, but global, community of people, which transcends the borders and citizenships of nation-states, and yet that’s our primary citizenship. So that has to make a difference for how we think about our relationship to global realities.
Listen to the whole interview here.
HT: FFF
New entry up at Intellectuelle.
We had a terrific time in Skye. We packed our wee rented car full of food and stuff and headed up to Skye on Friday afternoon. I’m surprised the Urminskys’ long legs could squish so easily. We arrived at the MacDonald’s cottage on the northern peninsula of Skye around 8 pm and threw together dinner. Saturday we slept in and did some walking around the Old Man of Storr (a huge rock formation that looks like it’s about to totter over) and drove around the island. Sunday Bryce preached a sermon on Philippians 2:1-11 at the Kilmuir Church of Scotland and he spent the afternoon reviewing for his evening sermon and relaxing. Neyir and I took a walk around the croft. We went over the the minister’s house and enjoyed a light meal with the minister’s wife and their children (the minister was off teaching Bible classes in Thailand). They were extremely welcoming and lovely people. We popped on over to the church (next door) and Bryce preached on the parable of the Prodigal Sons; everyone seemed to enjoy his preaching and we had some time visiting with the congregation afterwards. Monday we cleaned up and had a drive through Skye on our way out; we stopped off at Glencoe and scurried up the hill to get a view of the valley and then stopped in Glasgow at Ashoka for some fabulous curry. All was splendid.
Now we’re adjusting to being back and getting back to work and I can’t seem to remember what day it is. Our internet conked out on us at home and so I’m sitting here at the library madly trying to catch up on emails. We don’t know when it’ll be up and running again, but did want to give you a quick update on how things are. More thoughtful posts when the internet is up!
I think it’s so great that smaller islands off this big island are called ‘isles’; it just sounds so much better than Skye Island. The British sure know how to name things. Wynds and closes, it’s all very cool.
Well our flat is still messy and we haven’t begun to pack for our weekend away. Oh well, all in good time. I’ll be home in the morning to tidy up and do last-minute packing as well as receive our Tesco delivery for our weekend food. We’ll be renting a car and spending a solid few hours in the car with David and Neyir en route to Skye. We plan on going hill walking, drive around and have some time to relax. Well, I’ll be relaxing; Bryce will be preaching.
We went to Skye this week last year actually; that time with the Hays. They however are off to sunny California and eating In N Out burgers now while we will be in Scottish drizzle and making our own food. Ah well, I’m very much looking forward to going back to Skye. The topography seems like it’s straight out of some fairy tale. Last year it snowed one night in the mountains which would be very cool if that repeated itself (except it might stiffle our walking plans).
I hope you all have a lovely weekend and we’ll be back with you Monday evening or thereabouts (gotta get back in time to be rested for my tutorials on Tuesday morning!). Pictures will soon follow. Cheers!
I don’t really have much of interest to say. I turned in my third essay in three weeks today. It was on the Christology of Jurgen Moltmann. If you have no idea what that means, I’d suggest you keep it that way. It’s not very impressive.
Ash and I, along with David and Neyir, leave for Skye on Friday afternoon, which means I have 3 days to finish my sermon for Sunday. Next week I have the week off of classes, which will (hopefully) give me a chance to catch my breath.
Since I don’t have the capacity to say much more of interest at the moment, I’ll leave you with a few links.
If you have heard of or been wondering about the New Perspective on Paul, this lecture by Sinclair Ferguson is well worth a listen. It’s good, and long.
The most recently posted article on byFaith is a thought provoking discussion of issues of living a gospel-centered life in a post-Christian world.
And finally, this post from Tim Challies addresses a subject near to my heart–the way Christian use of language has lost much of it’s meaning through over(and mis)-use.
I posted a short bit on organic food at Intellectuelle following our first delivery from Grow Wild. Feel free to jump in on the conversation over there (or here, if you’d rather).
NEW: Check out this fabulous spoof video about organic food here. (HT: FFF)