Great Expectations

My friend Andy http://tornvertical.blogspot.com posted on an interesting topic this week: expectations.  He says he wishes he didn’t have any expectations, because then he couldn’t be disappointed.  Disappointment is a significant part of the human existence, and it stems from the reality that we live in a world the conforms to the following conditions:

1. Limited Supply
2. Unlimited Demand
3. Self-interest
4. Epistemic Gaps
   

Our expectations always get a little skewed when we think we can (or have already) overcome these conditions.  If, for example, we just had enough money to get rid of supply limitations—we could satiate our unlimited demand (well, come close at least).  There are simply never enough resources, and we always want more (#1 & #2), and it seems that even in the face of a ridiculous amount of money, we could always find a way to spend more. As King Solomon reminded us “The eye is not satisfied with seeing nor the ear filled with hearing.”  Hearkening back to the Genesis narrative, Man was given the so-called curse of the ground, that is the necessity of laboring.  It seems that in life many of our expectations surround the acquisition (and subsequent liquidation) of wealth.  And almost every time, whatever it is that we acquire with our wealth doesn’t measure up to what we thought it would be.  There are always exceptions, and I can think of a couple in my life, but it still doesn’t make one fulfilled.

We also live in a world of self-interest.  I am motivated by self-interest, and that causes me to be disappointed when I do not get what I want.  Furthermore, everybody else is motivated by self-interest, so whenever there are conflicting self-interested motivations, then there will be a disappointment on one end or the other, or both.  In business transactions, for example, the art of compromise has become vital to conducting business explicitly because of a divergence of self-interested motivations and desires.  This inevitably leads to disappointment.  

Additionally, in the human condition there are epistemic gaps, that is, limitation to our knowledge.  Not only do we not have a comprehensive understanding of our past and present, we have virtually no idea about the future.  We operate purely on limited information, the biased accounts of others, our own finite faculties, etc. to make conclusions about our past and present, and when it comes to the future, it would seem we are armed only with the dubious double-edged sword of probability, influenced on the one side by pessimism and the other by optimism.  We do not know how other people will behave, in most instances because we do not know how we ourselves will behave.  Consequently, when we make conclusions based upon probability to gauge future events, we are often disappointed because we simply estimated the outcomes incorrectly.  

Given all of this, it seems that we ought to come up with a way to take into account these expectations and then change our behavior accordingly.  Entire economic models are based upon factoring in expectations (for example, in the calculation of currency futures, interest rates, etc.).  Or perhaps, we should go another route—recognize the fact that there will be disappointment in life, and operate in the midst of it in such a way as to minimize its disutility.  

Returning to Solomon, “Nothing is better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and that his soul should enjoy good in his labor.”  I am learning that one of the most rewarding parts of life is to be thankful for the good things one already has.  It does not mean that one cannot strive for an improved condition, or that one even ought not strive for an improved condition—the entirety of the notion of Western Progress in the Enlightenment and Post-Enlightenment Eras is predicated on improving both local and universal conditions of the world.  But these two concepts, striving to improve one’s condition and being thankful for what one already has, are not mutually exclusive.  

If you have even a single person in your life who loves you, then you have something to hold on to.  If you have a single person in your life who you love in return, then you are doubly fortunate.  If there are more, then you are a blessed person indeed.  Because in the final analysis, at the end of one’s days, little will matter except the people, both living and dead, who you have touched and who have touched you.  People are not commodities, to be bought or sold or traded.  One cannot approach the people in his/her life with the attitude that when they have outlasted their purpose than can be traded in—for the notion of “outlasted their purpose” does not apply to people.  Living in the consumerist, commoditized culture of our post-modern world, we try to assign an economic value to anything and everything.  In doing so, we degrade the real, unquantifiable value of other people, especially those we love.  

Instead, we ought to approach every person in our life with the attitude of “what can I contribute to them to enrich and fulfill their life,” rather than trying to quantify the value they give to us.  The greater our capacity to give, the greater our capacity to live—because life is about people.  Everything else is irrelevant.  We all need to do our part to live that out more consistently than we do.  We will all be happier for it.

Gratuitous Love

{A Necessary Aside: There was an epoch in human existence when the great minds of the world argued with one another through letters to the editor, personal letters to one another, dueling books, chamber debates, and the like.  The distinct limitations upon those great minds with respect to their publication means perhaps deprived the world of countless volumes of thought.  Can we imagine if the Ontological Argument had first been posted to http://stanselm.blogspot.com (that is a working page, by the way, but obviously not one run by St. Anselm himself :-) ), and imagine if Gaunilo responded with a trackback at http://MonkOfMarmoutiers.blog-city.com.  David Hume and John Locke could have battled it out on a Webcast Debate at www.SkepticsVSEmpiricists.org....

It is my hope that such great minds will emerge on the Web one day, as I would love to watch intellectual history being made before my eyes.  For now, however, I must content myself with my own ramblings...}

The trouble with philosophy is that it always seems like whatever one thinks has already been said at least a hundred times before.  For whatever reason, this does not diminish my love of philosophical inquiry, but perhaps further enhances it, since the reality that such questions are still asked means that what has been said before has been insufficient to settle the debate.  Perhaps through some synthesis of previously-made arguments, or even (though less likely) through the concoction of a genuinely new argument we might find ourselves closer to an answer than before—and merely to be closer is a noble thing indeed.

That brings me to the topic of this post.  It is in response to Jody’s blogpost entitled “God: A kind-of, sort-of, in a couple of ways...overall nice guy” to be found at http://www.jdyates.net.  I shall proceed not on a point by point basis per se, but rather by building my response categorically through the major premises of the post, which are as follows: Gratuitous Evil, The Notion of the Greater Good, Fate, and finally, Gratuitous Love.

Gratuitous Evil

I tend to like Jody’s definition “violence and pain for the sake of violence and pain,” in the sense that it communicates the gravity of what gratuitous evil really is.  “Gratuitous” itself is defined by Random House Dictionary as “being without apparent reason, cause, or justification.”  If we match that word with “evil” then we get something akin to, say, the Holocaust, 9/11, etc.  Other things could be gratuitous evil on a smaller magnitude quantitatively but still significant from a qualitative perspective,  so perhaps a child with cancer or AIDS would qualify.  

So, when approaching the thesis “Does the existence of gratuitous evil in the world disprove the existence of a benevolent God?” one must take one of two directions.  The first would be to challenge the first premise of the question, that is, does gratuitous evil exist?  This seems to be a rather difficult proposition, considering that I have already given a couple of examples that most people would consider to fit the bill.  However, it is important to note that given the foregoing definition of “gratuitous,” then many of the traditional Theodicies ( http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=theodicy&x=0&y=0) that have pervaded Christian Theology over the years would actual be considered to take that very approach.  I shall first give an example of this Theodicy before proceeding to my own, which directly tackles the question about gratuitous evil and the existence of a benevolent God.

Traditional Christian Theology (dating back to St. Augustine and then developing into Reformation Theology a la John Calvin and Martin Luther, and subsequently into Fundamentalist theology, which is less coherent on the subject) has approached the question of Theodicy by justifying the presence of Evil in the world based upon Man’s inherent Sinfulness, which is of course predicated upon the Fall of Adam in the Garden of Eden. As the argument goes, God put Adam into the Garden of Eden, where there was a single rule, that of not partaking of the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, which was in the midst of the garden.  By defying God, Adam propagated the Fall of the entire human race, theoretically because he served as some sort of covenantal head of humanity.  Consequently, he imputed his Sin to all future generations, and as a result, Man is deserving of whatever ill or evil befalls him in his lifetime.  This also works with universal instantiation, that is, what applies to the individual man applies to humanity in general—natural disasters, disease, famine, war, are all just the collective versions of lost jobs, illness, loss of a family member, and so on.  Since what man did through Adam was so incredibly offensive to God, anything that happened after the Fall was perfectly justified—in fact, man deserved a lot worse.  That’s the argument at least.

This one still strains the credibility metric, though, since in order for it to be valid one must, by fiat, accept that Adam’s action was that offensive to God that it makes the Holocaust at least not unjustified.  It also presupposes the validity of a literal interpretation of the first two chapters of Genesis—again, a stretch of the credibility metric.  

Now that we have examined briefly the notion of “gratuitous evil” and a Traditional Theodicy to explain it, I’d now like to move to another possible explanation.

The Greater Good

The theory of The Greater Good is that God allows certain actions that, in the long run, are beneficial to us in spite of their painful interim consequences.  For example, a lost job might ultimately prove to be a blessing as a much better job comes along a month later.  Or, perhaps, somebody contracting cancer that is then cured provides a new perspective and outlook on life that one would have been incapable of gaining any other way.  This seems to make sense in the context of smaller evils and pains, but I am not certain that we can extrapolate a justification for the Holocaust.  In order for the Greater Good theory to function properly, we would have to come up with something that was gained from the Holocaust that would explain its necessity—that is, what overarching good came from the vicious slaughter of 11 Million people?  Furthermore, whatever that hypothetical good is would have to, ipso facto outweigh the evil of the Holocaust itself.  It’s not enough for some good to come from the Holocaust (for example, it could be said that we now have a stronger awareness of genocide when it is occurring and consequently desire to stop it when we see it), but overall, is the world, or even a segment of the world, that much better as a result of that gratuitous event?

Fate

Fate is one of those curious concepts of the human mind.  From whence came this notion of fate originally?  The dictionary gives various interesting definitions of the term.  “Something that unavoidably befalls a person,” describes a specific event.  “The universal principle or ultimate agency by which the order of things is presumably prescribed,” names fate as a personal entity.  And then there is the verb form, “to predetermine, as by the decree of fate; destine.”  In the Calvinistic tradition, there is the notion of “predestination” as decreed by God.  Many (if not most) Fundamentalist Christians take an odd approach to the subject.  While pronouncing that we have Free Will to do what we choose, we are told that God is sovereign over all of the universe and orders everything from beginning to end.  I’m not precisely sure how Free Will is compatible with that view, unless we take the bent of pure “freedom of agency” where one is merely able to do what one chooses and one only chooses what God has already predestined.  

So the question is, where does God really play into this fate concept, and how does that relate to the notion of God’s benevolence.  Let me first by pitching an argument that I will soon refute, but it provides a point of reference for the next couple of paragraphs. (Note: the P’s below stand for “premise” and the C’s stand for “conclusion”)

P1. God is Omnipotent (that is, He has all power).
P2. God is Omniscient (that is, He has all knowledge)
P3. God is Omnibenevolent
C1. If a malicious event is going to occur, God knows that it will happen (Reference P2)
C2. If a malicious event is going to occur, God has the power to stop it (Reference P1)
C3. If a malicious event is going to occur, God has the will to stop it (Reference P3)
C4. Therefore, God will stop the malicious event.

This is where the concept of Fate becomes so prescient in the discussion of the Goodness of God.  The foregoing argument is only sound if you grant P1-P3.  If any of them is proven untrue, then you have an unsound argument.  

Consequently, following in the philosophy of the Open Theists, I shall redefine “omniscience” from P2, and proceed with why I too, like Jody, reject the concept of what I shall term Brute Fate.  If Omniscience is defined as “all knowledge” we must first know what “knowledge” is.  Essentially we are looking at Divine Epistemology.  If God can know everything that is knowable, is there anything that isn’t knowable?  I would contend, along with the Open Theists, that future events are not knowable, as they have not happened—and therefore are indeterminate.  Otherwise, future actions are not free actions.  If they are already fixed, then it could not be otherwise, and therefore it is not free.  Let us take this example.

P1. God knows that Bob will get out of bed at 6am tomorrow morning.
P2. If Bob chooses to get out of bed at 7am, God’s knowledge was wrong.
P3. If Bob chooses to get out of bed at 6am, God’s knowledge was right.
P4. God is Omniscient of all events past, present, and future.
C1. Therefore, God cannot be wrong.
C2. Therefore, Bob cannot do otherwise than get out of bed tomorrow morning at 6am.
C3. Therefore, Bob does not have Free Will with respect to getting out of bed tomorrow morning at 6am.

When extrapolated out beyond this single hypothetical example, we find that literally no action would be free.  Why would a benevolent God create puppets?  Of course, the Dogmatist might say “Who can know the mind of God?” and think they have just made an argument.  But rhetorical questions do not an argument make.

Philosophy must always be reconciled with practice, and in practice, it at least seems that I am free to do otherwise in many circumstances.  In fact, there have been times when I was about to do one thing, and then did otherwise.  Perhaps, one might argue, God merely gives us an illusion of Free Will, though in reality we are bound to His constant controlling authority.  If God is benevolent, then God does not deceive, and therefore, he would not deceive us with an illusion of Free Will.  Now, one might argue that God is being benevolent by deceiving us with the illusion of Free Will, since if we realized that we weren’t Free, then we would behave fatalistically.  But then we would be in a double bind.  Let me illustrate below:

P1. God is benevolent.
P2. Man does not have Free Will, but is rather bound by the Will of God.
P3. Free Will is defined as “being able to have done otherwise.”
P3. God gives us an illusion of Free Will.
P4. If we did not have the illusion of Free Will, then we would act fatalistically.
P5. Fatalistic behavior diverges from what would otherwise be normal behavior.
C. Therefore, Man would act differently if he did not have the illusion of Free Will.

The conclusion of that argument leads to a contradiction, like so:

Man would act differently (that is “do otherwise”) knowing he could not do otherwise.  Inherent in this is that man actually could do otherwise, which we have just presumed (under P2) that he could not.

The ultimate conclusion, therefore, is that if God is benevolent, then Man must have Free Will, since we experience situations where it appears that we could do otherwise.

Now that we have gotten to the affirmation of Free Will, we can now look at the ultimate question that we set out to answer herein.  

Gratuitous Love

Thus far, I have shown that 1.) Man has Free Will, 2.) God does not have knowledge of the indeterminate future (though that does not necessarily mean He is clueless about the future, for example, He likely knows the future with a high order of probability given the behavior of man and individual people in the past), and 3.) There is, in fact, gratuitous evil in the world (the Holocaust, 9/11, Natural Disasters, War, Disease, etc.).  

This is where I would like to introduce the concept of Gratuitous Love, which I would define in the following way: “unmerited affection and compassion coupled with corresponding action.”  In the context of Christianity, the closest synonym I can think of is “grace,” but I think it is too weak a term, and so I shall employ “gratuitous love” instead.

Existing amongst all of the ills of the world are such wonderful examples of human compassion.  Human compassion was ultimately typified by Christ.  Conservative Christians would point to Christ’s death as the example of this—I would point to His life.  Here we truly see Gratuitous Love: The healing of the blind, the compassion towards the prostitutes, the lepers, the cripples and outcasts of society, the rejection of the selfish acquisition of power (when Satan offered Christ an earthly kingdom while Christ was fasting in the wilderness), money (he lived a life of poverty), and pride (dying a death of shame on the Cross).  He performed miracles to save people from their physical ailments, but He was also concerned with the spiritual—he forgave the lame man of his sins before giving him the power to walk again.  He offered the woman at the well “living water.”  The two-dimensional view Conservative Christians take of these stories is almost incredulous.  A Christian life is the life of the Beatitudes, the Fruit of the Spirit, 1 Corinthians 13’s discussion of love.  

Wherever we find these attributes, whether in Christians or Buddhists, Hindus or Muslims, Agnostics or Atheists or anything in between, these attributes of love, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, goodness, faithfulness, and self control, and we do find them in all corners of the world, amongst all peoples...this is where we find the presence of Gratuitous Love.  The origin of the teaching is less relevant than the outcome.  There is existential Good in the world, unmerited, in many cases unjustified.  We see it most pronounced in times of crisis and disaster.  But that’s only because those are the times when it is big enough to come into the media’s attention.  Mother Theresa happened to have been publicized to the world by Malcom Muggeridge.  Imagine if Muggeridge had never visited India—it would have deprived the world of the knowledge of a shining example of Gratuitous Love, but it would have deprived the world of the Love itself.  How many similar examples go unnoticed everyday?  The cold cup of water given to a stranger, providing directions to a desperate and lost out of towner, forgiving a loved one of a transgression.  These things happen everyday, and when Mankind is so capable of gratuitous evil, and when it would so benefit him in many circumstances, but he refrains, and gives the cup of water instead of the sword, we see that this exemplifies how a Benevolent God can co-exist with gratuitous evil, for as the Proverb declares “love covers all sin.”  

If we lived in a world where there was only Gratuitous Evil that was not contra-posed with Gratuitous Love, then it would seem that a Benevolent God could not exist in such a world.  But because the power of love is greater than the power of hate and evil, because a gentle word can overcome a harsh one, we find that Gratuitous Love then overcomes all.  The reality is that we each can find that kind of love in our own lives, but it must start from within.  We must first give that kind of love, and show its power.  The more we give it, the more we will want to give it, too.  It is an intoxicating concept, and even more intoxicating in practice.  

Francis of Assissi understood this well, and explicates it perhaps better than any other I have read:

“Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is sadness, joy; where there is darkness, light.  O Divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console; not so much to be understood, as to understand; not so much to be loved, as to love.  For it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, it is in dying that we are born against to eternal life.”

Gratuitous Love at its finest.  Now go and do likewise.

On the Utility and Social Change of Technological Innovation

"It is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day's toil of any human being."

John Stuart Mill

--

I must always muse at comments like Mill's quote above. He makes a fairly accurate point--the average American works just as much now (if not more) than he did prior to many of the inventions that have come to integrate themselves into the fabric of our lives. Their improvement on our productivity is tremendous. We may spend the same (or more) hours of our day toiling, but the end-product is much greater, and the utility we gain from that product (in monetary terms) is perhaps exponentially greater. It is interesting how most people examine technology from a purely utilitarian perspective, though (which is, I suppose, why I chose a Mill quote for the irony). The social changes, when examined, are generally done so in employing normative criteria, and people frequently lament technology's destruction of "traditional this or that."

Just as the invention of the devices that created commercial agriculture were chastised as destroying the traditional farming family and the nostalgia of rural America, the advent of Social Computing is now being described in heinous terms by those same-styled traditionalists who can hardly see past the end of their own noses. Indeed, Social Computing (a term meant to include such things as Social Networking, like MySpace) is beginning to transform the way people interact and even transact. It was said that the fax machine and e-mail would never replace "real mail." It hasn't, yet. But with legislation legitimizing electronically authorized contracts, the coming of age of digital fingerprint technology (and other verification methods), it seems that technology has created even more viable ways of transacting authentic business than before. Social Computing is the next logical step in this transformation.

From a purely business perspective, imagine a day when a person can log-on to a Social Computing platform on the web, meet a potential client or customer, hire a lawyer to draft a contract, execute it electronically, and then immediately store the contract and all of the accounting information involved in the financial transaction to a database that is browsable and searchable. This is the future of business, and life itself. Why go through the hassle of even using an online phonebook to find a technology consultant for my (hypothetical) business in California? I can not only meet him online, but read the reviews of people who have used his services and endorsed him professionally, hire him online, and give him electronic access to my database so he can tell me what's going wrong with my system. He can fix it (remotely), issue me a bill, and I can have it automatically paid. That just eliminated 4 hours of my day, my problem is fixed, and I didn't need an administrative assistant to FedEx a check to the guy. I could continue for pages with the possibilities--nay, the eventualities of this market, but I think I have given a good idea of what is coming.

All of this, however, is criticized by those traditionalists lamenting the loss of social interaction. The claim is that Social Networking, and by extrapolation, Social Computing diminishes human interaction. It is this normative claim that I will discuss in a subsequent post.

YouTube's Mishap

If you navigate right now at the time of this posting to the popular video download site YouTube http://www.youtube.com you will find that your tube isn’t there.  A few weeks ago, MySpace went down (and lost more profiles than it’s willing to admit) because it didn’t have sufficient server redundancy and backup, and so when the power went out and killed their servers because the outside temperature was a little too warm for the West Coast power grid, users got to play PacMan.  Now, YouTube is out, though not for weather, I wouldn’t imagine.  My guess (and it’s only a guess) is that YouTube is having a slight bit of trouble with its database.  That is one of the troubles with a lot of the overnight wonders on the Internet that occurred purely by accident (rather than through thoughtful planning and engineering): They simply can’t scale.  If Starbucks only had one location in every city, chances are they wouldn’t have the volume of traffic they get every day.  The lines would be too long, and people would go somewhere else for their coffee.  The net is no different.  So these new hot sites better get their scaling act together if they want to stick around.  The key demographic of Internet user is 15-30, and they are fickle.  If you can’t deliver quickly, they are instantly attracted by the next shiny little coin they see on the road.  

Re-Democratizating the House Part II

As I further entrench myself into the blogosphere, I am enjoying reading other people’s blogs, which is something I suppose I ought to do more of, since I hope that people will read mine.  I have been reading comments others have had about the democratic (or non-democratic) nature of the U.S. Congress, and read this left-wing rant during my search.

http://joshuacolwell.com/blog/index.php/2006/disproportionate-representation/

One of the serious problems with the reform movements in America today is that they are almost all ideologically driven, and as a result, they will never gain traction.  Mr. Colwell’s comments, for example, specifically cite Michael Moore as a reliable source.  Worse, his argument is that the United States Senate is not democratic enough.  The trouble, of course, for that perspective, is not only that the Founders intended for the Senate to not be democratic, but also that it makes good sense that it continue to be that way.

From the beginning, the idea of the Senate was that it was to be comprised of senior statesmen who were elected by the state legislatures to represent the interests of the states as a whole, rather than some dubious majority of the people of a state. It was further to be responsible for maintaining a balance of power between the states and the federal government (for those not studied in the political science literature, it is what is known as “federalism”).  Since the Senators were elected by the legislatures of the states, their interest (assuming they wanted to get re-elected) was to preserve the power and authority of the states.  With the Progressive Era and the advent of direct elections, we have seen a constant decline over the course of the last century of state authority, with the only protections and reversals coming from rulings handed down by the Rehnquist Court.  

For example, Mr. Colwell, in his blog, says “So, while a solid majority of Americans voted for Democrats in the Senate, the Senate became strongly Republican...The ratio of voters gives Wyoming almost 67 times as much representation in the Senate as the California voter.”  He then notes that the Senate was intended to be non-representational.  That, of course, is not quite accurate.  It was intended to be representative of the States, not of the overall population.  He confuses his terminology, assuming that if the Senate is not representative of the people of the country as a whole, then it is not a representative body.

I am, however, sympathetic with his concerns.  He, too, recognizes that the fact that well over 90% of the House is re-elected every two years evidences that the House is not ideologically representative of America as a whole. I think many people, both Right and Left, from Michael Moore to Pat Robertson, would agree that there is not enough representation of their views in Congress.  The people in the middle often complain of that as well.  Changing the House of Representatives is the best way to remedy this problem.

Imagine that the House of Representatives, hypothetically, has a membership of 10,000.  In this scenario, there would likely be a growth in the number of third party and independent members of the House, for a couple of reasons. First, the average cost of campaigns for Congress would diminish immensely.  If each Congressman represented 30,000 constituents on average, a person could get elected to Congress without even running a significant media campaign, and could theoretically survive on door-to-door campaigning and a limited direct mail effort.  Simultaneously, though, the national parties would have to spread their resources extremely thinly across the 10,000 races, and as a result, create a more level playing field for third party and independent candidates.  

Second, because the constituencies will be markedly smaller, there is an increased likelihood that voters will have had personal contact with the candidates in the race.  Statistics have shown that voter contact with a candidate from another party substantially increases the probability that the voter will be willing to abandon their normal party identification when they vote.  

Now, one of the general arguments against SMDP (Single Member District Plurality) systems is that minority ideologies are generally not congregated in heavy concentrations geographically, and that consequently those ideological minorities are not represented in Congress. The same could be said of several racial and ethnic minorities that are spread out across the country.  The solution to this, in my view, is to appropriate 9,000 of the 10,000 members to be represented by SMDP and the remaining 1,000 to be elected by Proportional Representation, where voters are able to cast a vote for the party of their choice and the parties receive membership in the House based on the percentage of the vote they receive.  For example, if the Republicans received 32% of the vote, the Democrats 28%, the Libertarians 13%, the Greens 12%, the Constitution Party 7%, and the Communist Party 5%, and Reform Party 3% then for the 1,000 seats elected by Proportional Representation, the House’s breakdown would be as follows:

Republican: 320 Seats
Democrat: 280 Seats
Libertarians: 130 Seats
Greens: 120 Seats
Constitution: 70 Seats
Communist: 50 Seats
Reform: 30 Seats

This, combined with whatever the parties receive in the SMDP elections, would result in a far more ideologically, sociologically, and racially representative membership of the House of Representatives.  It would further bring national focus to Congressional elections, and there would be increasing incentives (especially for those elected by the Proportional Representation method) to represent the entire country rather than paying so much attention to pork barrel spending for one’s district.  It would bolster the position of the smaller parties on the national stage, give the opportunity to be competitive in meaningful local elections, and overall make the political process more competitive.  

Subsequent blogs will outline how I think this would all work logistically.

Re-Democratizing the House of Representatives

When the U.S. Constitution was originally ratified, it provided that the House of Representatives should be comprised of one representative elected for every 30,000 people in each state.  After the first census provided for the enumeration of the House under this provision, there were 106 members of the United States House.  The population according to the 1790 census was approximately 3.9 Million.  Today, the U.S. Population stands at 299 Million and the U.S. House’s membership has been frozen at 435 since the Reapportionment Act of 1929.  That is approximately one representative per 688,000 people.  

The intention of the Founders with respect to the House of Representatives was that it was to be “The People’s House.”  Instead, over the course of the last century, it has increasingly become “The Special Interest’s House” and “The Lobbyists’ House,” but it has most certainly lost its status (real or imagined) of The People’s House.  If the original ratio had been maintained, there would be almost 10,000 members of the U.S. House.  At first consideration, this might seem unwieldy and virtually impossible to organize, but that presupposes a traditional parliamentary body’s operations and the way the House has historically operated.  435 members was almost unwieldy prior to the advent of electronic voting.  The House was extraordinarily inefficient in the days when all 435 members voted during voice-prompted roll call votes.  Now, roll call votes take place via electronic voting device.  Democracy was always a difficult prospect from an implementation point of view, but thanks to technology, both in communication and travel, it has become easier and easier since Independence.

Most people cannot name their Congressman, much less have they ever met him or her.  They likely don’t care to, either.  The reality is that Congressmen are safe in their seats approximately 97% of the time (those are the actual statistics).  Most House seats remain in the same party’s hands for decades at a time, and so Congressmen have little incentive to be terribly close or responsive to their constituency.  The districts are also engineered to protect incumbents census after census.  This, combined with the increasing cost of elections, makes Congressional races extremely uncompetitive unless it is an open seat, and even then it is at best a competitive primary between two almost indistinguishable members of the same party.  

The complete lack of ideological diversity in Congress and representativeness of the American public must be remedied, and through advances in communication and transportation technology, we can make these changes, but the political will must be present in order for it to occur.  

Thoughts While Watching a Baseball Game

I only infrequently have multi-topic blog posts, but I probably ought to do it more often. What better opportunity, though, to post such a sporatic bit of nonsense than a baseball game. Right now the Rangers lead the Mariners 13-7.

Israel continues its warpath in the Middle East, with no end in sight. Hezbollah, too, shows no signs of settlement. I have been reluctant to comment on the situation up to this point primarily because it is an issue of almost infinite complexity and an historical record stretching back millennia. I also think giving it attention only further entrenches its permanence. Hezbollah and their brother terrorist organizations engage in terrorist acts in order to get noticed. They know that it is a statement of their perceived subservience so the rest of the world will be sympathetic to their plight. Israel, too, knows that they can make grandiose claims about being the victims of Islamofacist terror, and brutalize their cultural enemy without serious recourse (at least nothing more than being the most hated country in the world).

The reality is that the world never cares or involves itself in the countless cultural genocides and religious wars that rage daily in Africa. The world hardly bats an eye at the brutality of the communist dictatorships in Cuba, Venezuela, or religious persecution in China and the Middle East. Why did the Darfur crisis (which continues, unmitigated) receive 15 seconds of the world's attention? Robert Mugabe is ruling Zimbabwe with the iron fist of economic oppression with catastrophic consequences, AIDS is ravaging all of Sub-Saharan Africa, and yet the world is concerned with a small ethnic conflict that has been around almost as long as time itself. The news agencies want each flare up between Israel and the terrorists to be the tipping point that drags Iran into open war. The likelihood of this is minute, but it sells.

We need to stop giving the terrorists and the bullies our attention, and maybe they'll stop craving it. At the very least, we could focus on somebody who might be at least remotely interested in our advice.

Next topic...interest rates. For the first time in two years, the Federal Reserve decided not to raise interest rates. I have opposed about the last three rate hikes. Interest rate stability is important to a number of sectors of the economy, not least of which is the consumer debt market, the fundamental underlying support of the U.S. Economy. The ability to leverage income at reasonable rates of interest sustains demand levels for consumer and durable goods, as well as luxury items. The home mortgage market is additionally vital to long-term wealth creation, since one of the few ways Americans save money and build equity. Forcing more individuals into rental markets for housing will significantly diminish individual net worths. We'll see where the Fed goes from here, but if they do not maintain rate stability in the coming months, we will see stagnation in those key markets as well as the US stock exchanges, which have always been leading economic indicators.

7th Inning, Rangers still lead the Mariners 13-7.

This is a totally random comment, but I am finding in my life that the more I complain about a particular woe or dislike, the more aware I am of it and its negative effects. That in turn causes me to complain more. Vicious cycle. I need to utilize the lessons of the contemplative lives led by the likes of Henri Nouwen and Thomas Merton to empty myself of those wants and desires so I can be free to offer myself and my love to others. Complaining never remedies the situation anyway.

Typing from my blackberry....my thumbs are sore, so that is all for today.

Britain's Home Secretary on the Fungibility of Liberty

I am writing this entry from my seat on a commercial airliner after being repeatedly interrogated prior to boarding about whether or not I had in my possession any liquids including bottled water or hair gel. Don't I feel safe now.

With the security threat level raised today as a result of the attempted hijackings, Britain's Home Secretary, John Reid weighed in on the issue of limiting liberty in order to preserve security.

"Sometimes we may have to modify some of our own freedoms in the short term in order to prevent their misuse by those who oppose our fundamental values and would destroy all of our freedoms."

I'm unsure how others might read this little clip, but I am certainly puzzled as to how liberty is best protected when it is curtailed. The unfortunate reality is that in spite of many short term measures to "protect" the people of countries targeted by terrorism, what we have is, at best, an illusion of security interspersed by an infrequent piercing of that dubious veil.

President Bush has said that we mustn't let the terrorists win be reducing our protection of liberty and essentially "give in." Yet this is precisely what his administration and Tony Blair's government have done in response to the recent increase in Islamic terror threats. These threats, lest we forget, have been around since the end of the First World War, and have manifested themselves in a number of ways over the last several decades. Islamic terrorism is nothing new, and our response ought not belie this reality.

We cannot be completely secure, and we must decide what level of safety we are willing to accept with its corresponding loss of freedom.

I would take the opposite stance of Mr. Reid. It would be better to sacrifice some short term security in order to preserve our long-term, fundamental liberties--for they will depart us, not with agony, not with sorrow, and not with fanfare, but in the silence of the night and nothing to be done about it.

Bless Those Who Curse You

I'm eating breakfast at an out of town hotel and drinking my morning coffee before I hop on a plane back to Dallas. This week has been an enormous lesson in "bless those who curse you." One of my most intense dislikes in human personality is passive aggressiveness, especially from people who claim to be blunt.

For example, I'm quite content if somebody doesn't like me, but I would appreciate the courtesy to just say it rather than be passive about it and make small, snide remarks here and there. Yet, I have to be patient and kind to those people too, even if I know that behind my back they are trying to push me out or cut me down. As much as it pained me, I turned the other cheek to somebody like that this week, and then walked into a room and received a hammering from that person. He of course will never realize the favor I did for him, but I have to be content with that. To seek recognition for my charity would diminish its nobility, but for whatever reason I have a resentment brewing inside of me over the whole matter.

 That is the selfish portion of me that I have to bring under increasing control, and force it into submission to that inner voice of love. In order to succeed in the relationships I have with those who I love, I must be able to love those people I do not like. For if, as I believe, Christ was the archetype of the inherent goodness and value of all mankind, and if he who hates his neighbor has hated Christ, then it follows that he who has hatred toward one neighbor has hated all. And I believe that genuine love is only possible when it is universal, for only then is it rightly rooted I unselfishness rather than self interest. If it is the case that I dislike a person, it is likely for some selfish reason- I simply dislike his company, that is, I view it as unpleasant to be with that person, for example. Yet that dislike cannot translate into malice or disregard, the latter perhaps being the most heinous, since it seems the most excusable while causing us to become callous and unaffected.

It appears to me that if I am able to fully love a stranger, then it enables me to devote myself in love to those precious few people who are closest to me. Only then will I be able to put all of their needs and all of their concerns above my own, thereby fulfilling the command "love one another as I have loved you."

Manipulating People

I usually blog sporatically and when I have sat down and given enough thought to write a lengthy post. I will most assuredly continue my long posts, but it is my hope to intersperse them with shorter ones as well, like this one posted from my blackberry.

I am traveling today on business, and the time alone gives me the much needed opportunity to think and reflect, something I simply have not taken adequate time to do as of late. I had an interesting conversation with a friend of mine yesterday about the way people treat each other. In a beautifully Christian humanist statement, my friend said "I try not to view other people as objects of manipulation." My cursory analysis of his statement was "well of course." But I realized it meant something more difficult. Sitting in a book store, he pointed to one of the workers and noted that he desired not to view that person as merely a source of information to help him locate a book, but as a human being with intrinsic value. Makes sense enough, and then I started to realize what a tall order that is.

Even in my personal relationships, I know I don't do a good job of that. I'm primarily concerned with what I am getting. This is with people I care deeply about. How much worse is it with people I don't even know.

"Love suffers long and is kind...Love does not seek its own."

It is difficult to deal with all of my selfish interests. They make me impatient, and consequently frustrated, which leads to vindictiveness, not on any broad scale, but potentially in a worse way, on a very petty scale--and for no other reason than that I am not getting my way.

I've got to do better. That will only come about with a change of attitude, though, which doesn't occur with ease. First must come the recognition that my needs aren't the only needs, and my pains aren't the only pains. And until I am able to subordinate my ego to the needs and struggles of others, my hope for unselfishness is an exercise in futility.

Theory and Reality

by Skinner G. Layne

My life of charts and graphs
Of mathematical tears
And algorithmic laughs
Where I add equation x
To the top of axis y
And the lines and slopes descend
Til it divides by eight times pi.
Want and need are always met
At that overlapping point
Of the Phi and Omega sets.
The compromise of life and land
Is most predictably found
Where supply intersects demand.
If only books and essays could
Translate into real life
And computation of two and two never would
Turn out to four plus five.
For Plato's cave may entice
Those who thrive on theory
And dread life's vice
But function g and d of C
Could never hope any day
To boast the ocean's majesty.
Nor could cosine and his friends
Be fairer than the sunset
Or the flower petal's ends.
The order of sigma and of mu
Are maddening perfection
That no beauty can undo.
Rules cannot exist while being free,
So why can I not be content
When one and two don't make three?

Can MySpace Change the Face of Politics?

I ran across an article today on CNN Politics

http://snipurl.com/tnij

and after reading it, got to thinking. Is it really possible for a poorly-designed social networking destination to change the face of American politics, and break the eternal trend of youth uninvolvement? The naively optimistic might argue that finally we have found something that will get young people actively involved in politics.

But those same people said the same things about MTV's Rock The Vote, a campaign that failed miserably to turn the 18-25 demographic out to the polls. They also said that the War in Iraq would do it, but it didn't. In fact, neither did the War in Vietnam--the first time 18 year olds got to vote, they elected Nixon. That, by the way, was the year of the highest youth turnout in American elections.

It has been declining ever since.

The lack of youth involvement in American politics, and the decline of voter turnout among that age group will not be cured by gimics like MTV or MySpace, though I do believe that the Internet and the Social Networking Phenomenon, when properly harnessed (MySpace is not going to be the venue, but neither is some political hack social networking niche site), will produce massive upheaval both socially and politically. The Internet will one day break politics as we know it, but we are not there yet.

That is because we are not to the breaking point in politics. We are at the apathetic point, and that apathy is rapidly spreading into the adult communities. There is the growing belief (as if it could be any greater than it is) that only money influences politics, and the ballot box is incapable of effecting any change in policy. It has little or nothing to do with the party in power, though.

Is life really any different under George W. Bush than under Bill Clinton? Does it really matter whether the Democrats or the Republicans control Congress? To an extent, it does. Tax policy is perhaps the only reason it matters. Spending policy certainly doesn't change based on the party in power. We have more entitlement programs under this Republican administration, not fewer. Social policy isn't markedly different, except perhaps on the issue of gun control, but even the Clinton administration couldn't enact permanent gun control policies--the political will simply wasn't there, even after Columbine.

Sure, the Supreme Court nominees would be different under a Democrat administration, but some days we can't tell the difference between David Souter and Stephen Breyer.

So, the question remains, how can Social Networking and the Internet change the face of policy and politics in America?

It is a frightening prospect for anybody who is currently a part of the political system and who simultaneously understands the real impact of a radical change in politics based on the new medium of the Internet. (I would argue, given the comments of Dinosaurs like Ted Stevens about the "Interweb" that there are few political figures who do actually understand the far reaching implications of the coming Revolution). This is because we will soon see an end to the two party system. I wouldn't go playing taps just yet, but it is out there in our future, I'm quite sure.

It's a rather tricky process, however, and will take a number of sophisticated organizers to pull it off, but it will be remarkable and revolutionary when it happens.

First, I ought to note that no revolution is truly revolutionary. Revolutions are merely evolutions with breakthroughs. The decline of party affiliation in the United States is an example of one of these evolutions. Since there are no viable independent candidates, it is inevitable that a new party--or parties will emerge, and it will likely be the latter. In fact, the more the better, because as more parties emerge, it will become increasingly difficult for a major party candidate to receive a majority of the votes.

If you think this is unlikely, then imagine for a minute a Congressional candidate from a third party who is able to muster say 10,000 supporters on a social networking website that is in common usage by the masses, and especially young people. He (or she) blogs daily, and that means the candidate, not some carefully crafted press release from a PR professional. He posts his clever video ads on his profile page. He chats and IMs with supporters and constituents. That 10,000, if amassed before his primary, will turn to 100,000 by election day. Don't believe it? Take a short browse on the website YouTube, where people can post their own videos. A spoof of the new Mac commercials has already had over 250,000 viewers. That's just the one video--YouTube's daily downloads number over 100 Million. A savvy candidate can harvest that power in his district to garner a tremendous amount of support.

But he will have to be real. The Television Politician was the Movie Star. Everything he said was scripted and crafted, and every hair on his head was neatly combed. The Internet Politician will likely wear Diesel jeans and have misspellings in his blogs. People have turned to the flawlessness of Hollywood to the ameteurishness of a lot of internet entertainment, and we should expect the same in politics, one of these days at least. Ameteurishness isn't such a bad thing, either. It means a politician much less beholden to special interests, party identification, etc.

The New Media--it means more than catching Dan Rather in memogate, it means breaking politics all together. I'm looking forward to the day of that flash point.

The Democratization of the Media Redux

Public Service Announcement: I have recently rediscovered SnipURL.com, a wonderful zero price utility on the web for creating persistent, shortened URLs for referencing in such places like this blog. You will see that I will primarily link (especially to news articles that disappear days later) to SnipURL links--do not be decieved, this is merely an efficient archiving tool, and one I highly recommend.

Now on to today's ruminations.

Blogging entered the average American's vernacular during the 2004 Presidential Election, when astute observers of the political scene stood up to the so-called "Old Media" and took down Dan Rather in the now infamous Memogate Scandal. This was a significant event in American political history, but it seems to have also been a mere flash in the pan. So it shall remain for the time being. The other day, I embarked on writing a blog post about MySpace's interaction with politics. I might get to finishing that today or tomorrow, if I am lucky, but it warrants such significant considerations that it may just remain a "draft" in my blogger post history. With the Internet, it isn't true that "what is here today is gone tomorrow," but it certainly is true that "what is here today will be irrelevant tomorrow."

The impact of blogging on American politics in 2004 was significant in a certain sense, but negligible in the sense that it likely didn't affect the outcome. But Web phenomena are having radical affects on the habits and propensities of Americans when it comes to their entertainment. YouTube and MySpace are the precursors to something truly mammoth that is yet to come. They are the pioneers in the Internet entertainment marketplace in that they have taken something that people have tried to do successfully in the past and have actually made it successful. But they haven't yet made it profitable. That will be the true success story of Internet Entertainment---or, I suppose henceforth, I will call it Intertainment, because I am lazy. The Wright Brothers took the age-old dream of the Flying Machine and made it a reality--American Airlines made money doing it.

This same cycle will repeat itself on the Internet, and in Intertainment. We are starting to see the Democratization of Entertainment--the fruits of which are Intertainment. This New York Times article encapsulates this phenomenon quite well:


http://snipurl.com/tmq9

It is always thought that Big Business will be the best equipped to profit from new phenomenon. I would so fervently challenge that thesis as to perhaps make a fool of myself, were it not for the facts being squarely in my corner on this one.

The profiteer of the Massification of Retail was not Woolworth, but Walton. The profiteer of Internet Search was not AltaVista, but Google. TimeWarner has no more profited from owning AOL than Rupert Murdoch has profited from owning MySpace. The ideas are good in theory, but they don't work themselves out so well in reality. Perhaps that is because of a lack of innovative culture at those acquiring corporations. Or maybe it is because "me too" is simply no way of doing business--it has to be "me better."

The movie studios have monopolized mass entertainment for the better part of 7 decades, but that is slipping. But it is not slipping because somebody else is taking over mass entertainment; it is slipping because there is decreasingly such a thing as mass entertainment. There is micro-entertainment on a massive scale. It is the person, or company, who first figures out how to monetize this phenomenon who will be the next Wal-Mart or the next Google, but more likely a hybrid of the two. Wal-Mart figured out how to sell more of more to most people, and Google has figured out how to sell a little something to everybody. That combination will be impenetrable--for a week or so at least.

To harness the collective talents of the world's billions is an undertaking that only recently could have been possible. But in a world where every man can be an actor, every woman a director, and every Net user a viewer and critic, the profit potential is unfathomable.

I look forward with great anticipation to the social upheavel that is on the horizon because of Intertainment. The next casualty of the Net will be Education--and then Politics. Somebody will profit from all of them, but it will require bold creativity, a challenge to every assumption that currently pervades these arenas, and a commitment to weather the storms that always accompany creative destruction.

A Life of Riddles & Rhymes

by Skinner G. Layne

When I look outside of my window
I see no grass or trees,
I see blades of honey
And flowers made out of bees.

I look at the roads of pepper
And doors with candy seals
While people go driving around
Their horses that stand on wheels.

Buildings are made with popcorn
And buttered with Chardonnay,
And weren't it for the Stilton Moon
I couldn't tell night from day.

Streetlamps are filled with fireflies
LIt by the lightning strings,
And nursery rhymes are covered in chocolate,
When they story of frogs with wings.

My pen writes with maple syrup,
And the seas are filled with wine,
THe stars are platinum coins,
And a wish can make them mine.

In a world with so much heartache,
In a time so mired in pains,
Why can't I look at cornfields,
And see cotton candy chains?

You may wonder why I hide myself
In metaphor and rhyme
Yes I could think concretely
But I haven't got the time.

For all of life is riddle,
And to pretend it's not is vain,
So why not stop and enjoy the taste,
Of the falling lemonade rain?

The Chest and the Locksmith

by Skinner G. Layne

Not many months ago
In an unsuspected way,
I happened upon a dusty chest
And took it home that day.

I dusted off the chest and lid
Then open it I tried
And found it bound by bolt and lock
So with bar and hammer pried.

It was sealed and shut more tightly
Than banks with bars of gold
So I knew there was great treasure
Stored inside its hinged fold.

For months I sat and stared at it
Wondering what could be inside
Wishing I could open it
And see what there was to hide.

When I called my local Locksmith
To see if he could help me out
He looked at the tightened bolts
And said the right tools he was without.

He said a chest so sealed shut
Was a special chest indeed
And would open itself someday
Traveling at its own desired speed.

But that when it finally opened
And I feel its internal bliss
It would be for me the thrill and softness
Of a lover's genuine kiss.

I despaired the Locksmith's words
For I do not like to wait
And wondered if I even could
To peer inside that crate.

But the Locksmith told me, "Patience,
I've seen such chests before,
And those who finally look inside
Find that which they adore."

"The wait will not be easy,
And may never seem to end,
And the choice is wholly yours
Whether with Time you will contend."

"For Time that vile robber
Who's incessantly on attack
Will thieve you of your treasure
By making you turn your back."

"He will make war upon your Spirit
And fill your mind with doubt
But you must cling to what your heart knows
And learn to wait it out."

"For one day his seige will falter
And though tired you will transcend
Rejoicing that you were victorious
And thankful you did defend."

"Then your chest will open,
And share its richness with your heart
You will forget the trials
And how long past was the start."

The Locksmith left my house that day,
And there I was alone,
But determined to heed his words
And stare down the great unknown.

Since so few things in life are worthy
Of patience and travail,
And when you finally find one
You must resolve that you'll prevail.

Another might never come along
For years or lives of man
Those other distant hopes or dreams
Mustn't figure in your plan.

The clouds may make fantastic shapes
But soon will float away,
The sands produce mirages
In the fervent heat of day.

But there is much that seems appealing
Yet never does fulfill
And though the ones that do, take time,
I've resolved to have the will.

There's no key to open that treasure chest,
And one cannot be made,
But one day it will open itself,
And I'll be elated that I stayed.

Politics is almost as exciting as War...

Winston Churchill remarked once that "Politics is almost as exciting as war, and quite as dangerous, for in war you can die only once, in politics, many times." And thus is the career of Albert Gore, Jr. Gore of course was a failed presidential candidate in 1988, a little-remembered fact, because as we all know, the "also ran" guys don't stick in our memories too well. He earned his reprieve in 1992 as the unlikely running mate of the come-from-behind surprise nominee of the Democrat Party, Bill Clinton, and being Clinton's running mate was barely a consolation prize when Clinton was bringing up the rear in the three-way campaign between himself, George H.W. Bush and H. Ross Perot. But the come-from-behind syndrome miraculously kicked in against an incumbent President who at the peak of the success in the Persian Gulf Campaign had an 80%+ approval rating.

Until Dick Cheney, Al Gore was probably the most influential Vice President in American history. Even among Vice Presidents who became President, most Veeps were weak and kept out of the loop. Harry Truman wasn't even aware of the Manhattan Project until FDR died. It is also not uncommon for failed Presidential candidates to come back to life--in the 20th Century, Richard Nixon was Vice President and lost to Kennedy, only to return in another era and win two terms as President. Ronald Reagan lost to Gerald Ford in 1976 in the Republican Primary, and George H.W. Bush was defeated by Reagan in 1980.

As Mr. Gore's profile continues to rise again, he cannot be written off, and what better motivation for him to run than simply to defeat Hillary Clinton in the Democrat Primaries. Rumors have it that Gore was always jealous of Hillary's power and influence, and the fact that she often eclipsed him in things like office space and other such things in the West Wing. Moreover, Gore has been blamed publicly as squandering the legacy of the Clinton administration (unnecessarily, in my view...the Clintons squandered the legacy of the Clinton administration), and so he has motivation to prove that it was Bill & Hill's fault that the Democrats lost the White House to George W. Bush, and not his own.

Gore has instant star power and name recognition. He is easily the most popular candidate in the field among African Americans, and we mustn't forget that he pulled the highest percentage of the Black vote in 2000 than any other person to run for President in American history. The ability to keep the Black Bloc together is integral, not only in winning a Democrat Primary but also in securing the victory in the '08 General. He is liberal enough to appeal to the Democrat Base, but, if he wanted to, could return to his moderate roots to appeal to a general election crowd. Gore is certainly more palatable and less cacophanous than Hillary, and does not have the same divisive character. He is more laughed at by Republicans than hated or feared. And perhaps that works to his advantage---he is underestimated by his opponents.

Furthermore, he has already run for President once, and almost won. He did in fact receive more votes in the popular count that George W. Bush, so it is not as if he doesn't know what he's doing. And I'm sure he'd do a few things differently this time around. I think not running in 2004 was the most brilliant strategy for preserving his political future that he could have imagined. Better to place it on life support for a few years than try to fight with some major wounds still bleeding.

I'm definitely not saying I want him to be President or that I would vote for him...but it's important that we not write him off. Republicans have already made that mistake in Congress, and we are about to lose the House because of it. Let's just make sure we nominate somebody who is up to the task of defeating Gore once again, but not once and for all---a week is an eternity in politics.

Ecclesiastical Migration and the Southern Baptist Conservative Resurgence

A dear friend of mine, Doug Baker, published an article in
Baptist Press this week and asked me to read and comment on it. I thought the subject matter of value and would like to publicly remark on its content.

Doug argues that there is an exodus, and perhaps a coming mass exodus out of the Southern Baptist Convention by conservatives who are fleeing to other denominations, like the Presbyterian Church in America for example, and he crticizes the heirs to the Resurgent Conservative SBC for failing to produce grounded theology and instead being purely programmatic. He argues that "the prevailing ethos of the day held by critics of the Southern Baptist Convention is that the modern conservatism of the SBC holds no specifically theological ideas--only political ones--which are not worthy of serious consideration by the thinking class."

I would completely agree with this criticism. However, I would argue, the chief problem lies not merely in the laity's inability to comprehend such theological ideas, but in that the laity has no desire to comprehend such ideas, and as a result of the forces of supply and demand, the lowest common denominator of preaching often emerges in SBC sermons. This stems in large part from the fact that the conservative resurgence was accompanied by a resurgence of fundamentalism. The two are often confused as being identical, but I would argue that they are not. There are many philosophically consistent conservatives, most of them in the Calvinistic tradition, who are able to present a systematic theology. There are few fundamentalists, however, who are capable of such academic rigor. But more importantly, they could not care less about academic rigor.

The faith of today's fundamentalists lies in its ability to produce power politics collectively for the congregation. Academic rigor and philosophical inquiry necessitate a certain level of humility and willingness to make concessions for the sake of philosophic consistency. Fundamentalists are unwilling to make any such doctrinal concessions, even on the most obscure jot or tittle of their belief system. This stands immediately in the way of the kind of theological depth that Doug argues is necessary for the Southern Baptist Convention to continue its success.

I would partially criticize Doug's comparison near the end of his article on the basis of methodological soundness, as he compares the SBC's 5% growth to the 42.4% growth experienced by the PCA and the 57.2% growth of the Evangelical Free Church of America. The PCA and EFCA are of course much smaller denominations, and so the percentages betray the hard numbers entering those congregations. He is probably correct, however, in his conclusion that most of that is because of theological migration. Those hard figures, though, still leave the SBC with a significant 5% net growth rate.

I would like to explain the reason I believe the SBC's success has been as remarkable as it has, and why it will continue, though this explanation contains primarily criticism of these ends.

One of my favorite authors, M. Scott Peck, M.D. outlines the stages of spiritual development in this way: 1) Chaos, wherein the persons is an emnity with God and the world and acts out of pure selfishness and without restraint. 2) Structure, the person has a spiritual conversion and then possesses a simplistic and generally legalistic faith that he adheres to rigidly. 3) Agnosticism, where the person begins to doubt some or all of the teachings he so readily accepted in phase 2 and may even reject the existence of God. 4) Mysticism, where the person has a peaceful understanding and love of the world and sees the interconnectedness of creation and of God's place therein.

The success of the Southern Baptist Convention has been in its ability to take people from Phase 1 to Phase 2, and because they see the appreciable gains in the quality of their life when they make that transition, they are easily kept there in Phase 2, unwilling to question doctrine or philosophy espoused by their respected authority out of fear that it will disrupt the benefits they received from their conversions. The Fundamentalist approach of Faith through Fear is particularly heinous, and rather than encouraging discussion and understanding, it represses dissent and thought in order to maintain its safety. The Catholic church had centuries of success with this methodology, if one defines success as being full pews and full coffers. But the quiet trickle of the thinking faith community within the conservative culture is evidence that some people, although they will not stand up to such oppression, will at least not subject themselves to it, and so they walk out of the doors one by one.

The reality is that the one holy catholic (universal) and apostolic church must recognize that if it is to maintain its legitimacy in the public sphere, if it is to succeed in remaining relevant in the post-modern era, it must not and cannot resign itself to doctrinal rigidity and thought oppression. The only reason a person has to fear being questioned is that he lacks the substance to provide a satisfactory response, and so his fear causes him to react in a way that is generally contraposed to the personality of Jesus Christ. It is most in the defense of the faith where Christians utterly abandon Christian Charity.

Baptist Preachers are quick to quote 1 Peter "Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that is within you," but they often fail to finish Peter's admonition "But do this with gentleness and respect, keeping a clear conscience, so that those who speak maliciously against your Good Behavior in Christ may be ashamed of their slander." Rarely is there gentleness from the pulpit, and never respect. But this is what keeps the masses fired up. It keeps them writing checks and filling pews.

Religious zealotry is the best friend to the charlatan, and a trusting dupe to the con-artist. I want to be careful that my generalizations are not too broad or sweeping, as I know there are many honorable and decent men in the pulpits of Southern Baptist and Fundamentalist churches across the United States, but it takes little effort to turn on the television or walk into a mega church and find one of these charlatans getting the masses to shout a collective "amen" at his uneducated assertion that so energizes people in Phase 2 of Spiritual Development.

The Church must be willing to undergo the pain of helping people develop beyond Phase 2, however, and the great challenge is how to skip the 3rd Phase and go directly Phase 4. The boldness required to achieve these ends is generally lacking, as the will to undergo pain is usually lacking from preachers who have good salaries and nice benefit packages.

Sadly for the fundamentalist wing of the Church, Paul did not tell the Philippians "That your judgment may abound more and more in dogma and shallowness of insight." No, he prayed "that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight."

The Conservative Church will always survive--there have been zealots throughout human history in every religion and sect and cult, and Christianity is not immune. The question for the relevance of the Conservative Church is whether it chooses to be a purely political organization whose goals are rooted in adhering to a rigid set of doctrine and imposing it on the rest of humanity or if it chooses to be a thoughtful, truth-pursuing culture rooted in love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self control. Shall it be Pat Robertson or J.I. Packer? If it is the former, the Conservative Church will be irrelevant in the postmodern world and will fail to have an impact. If it is the latter, then important and sensitive issues can be faced with sincerity, diligence, and charity, and the zealots might be kept at bay.

It is my hope that Doug's analysis that the thinking populace of the conservative resurgence in the SBC are fleeing to other denominations like the PCA is an indication that there is a backlash against the anti-intellectualist, dogmatist bent of the SBC. Perhaps the Conservative Church will not be marginalized in the wake of higher criticism and postmodern philosopher, and whatever its successor may be. But more importantly, let all Christians hope that the zealots and biggots who call themselves Christian do not marginalize the entirety of the Faith of Jesus Christ and His message of love and forgiveness that was borne out on the Cross of Calvary.

Oh Draconian Director, O Lame Movie!

I went to see the movie, The Da Vinci Code last night, and when I awoke this morning to post about the movie, I was instantly struck with a memory of the poem G.K. Chesterton inscribed in a copy of a book he himself wrote that he did not care for, and it rather sums up my impression of the movie The Da Vinci Code:

This is a book I do not like,
Take it away to Heckmondwike,
A lurid exile, lost and sad,
to punish it for being bad.
You need not take it from the shelf,
(I tried to read it once myself:
The speeches jerk, the chapters sprawl,
The story makes no sense at all)
Hide it your Yorkshire moors among
Where no man speaks the English tongue.

First and foremost, the movie was not subtle enough. This is classic Hollywood, I understand, but good grief--showing the sarcophogus of Mary Magdalene at the end? I am attempting to think of an exaggerated example to prove my point, but I truly cannot fathom anything more blatantly obvious than that. Anybody who hadn't read the book could have figured out that Remy was a bad guy, and most likely that Teabing (Ian McKellan) was too, within about, oh the first forty-five seconds after their appearance on the screen. Where was the secret conspiracy? They showed the viewer everything.

The enjoyment of thinking about and breaking the codes that were scattered throughout the movie was lost in the rather inconceivably lame sequences where Robert Langdon (Tom Hanks) lit up letters with his eyes and pictured scenes that materialized in front of him. I wasn't sure if I was watching a mystery-thriller or a really bad B rendition of CONTACT.

The acting, too, was...lacking. Tom Hanks delivered a rather mediocre performance at best, though perhaps we can blame it on the utterly bankrupt directing skills of Ron Howard. Jean Reno, who played Captain Bezu Fache, was the only believable character who went through any sort of development in the film. Langdon and Sophie Neveu, who were supposed to be the most round of all the characters were not appreciably different by the end of the movie than they were at the beginning.

I was thoroughly disappointed in the quality of the movie, and again must express that the movie's worst quality, like the book's, is its abject denial of the Divinity of Christ. It is most certainly heresy--but fortunately in our country heretics, too, are free to make truly awful movies.

The Da Vinci Code

A friend of mine emailed me a couple of weeks ago about the Da Vinci Code and asked my opinion. He asked me today to post my response on my blog, so below is the original, unedited response I gave to his question.

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Skinner -

I saw this article about the Da Vinci Code today. I haven't completely formed my opinion on where I stand on the issue because it is a fictional book that three years after its publishing has not to my knowledge spawned any new religions or any back lash to the church by feminist movements... Or am I just in the dark.

Let me know what you think about this article and about the effect that the movie is or will have on society.

http://www.christianitytoday.com/movies/commentaries/othercott.html
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My Response Below
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Andy,
I’m not sure if you have read the book or not, but I actually just finished reading it (it’s always important, in my view, before one criticizes something to actually have experienced it, whatever it may be....almost whatever that is haha). It is a well-written novel with a solid plotline and suspenseful action sequences, but it is based on a rather blasphemous premise. I can’t say I have a wholesale rejection of some if its statements concerning the male-dominated nature of the Christian faith. I think that gender issues have been demagogued for the purpose of social control in Western society for two millennia.

The Church’s bleak history on women’s rights is hardly an argument for radical secular feminism, but nevertheless, I am quite firm in my commitment to a contextual reading of all texts on gender and sexuality, even if such readings are considered heterodox by the majority of those in the conservative wings of the church (Catholic, Southern Baptist, Bible Church, and PCA). In fact, if we scrutinize the scriptures, we will find that, for example, the fourth chapter of the Philippian epistle makes reference to women who were “fellow workers” or as some translations put it “fellow ministers” with Paul in the Gospel. This, combined with the mountain of Old Testament references to the power of influential females in Israel ought to make one reconsider the androgocentric interpretations that have pervaded modern Christian thought.

Interestingly, we can trace a good majority of contemporary conservative thinking on gender and sexuality to the works of Augustine of Hippo, whose philosophy more resembles baptized Platonism than it does thorough Christian theology, not only on this subject but on a number of them (e.g. God’s relationship to Time, the Duality of Body & Soul, and others). Yet it was Augustinian theology that influenced Calvin and other of the Calvinistic Reformers on Soteriology, and they translated their acceptance of Augustine’s Soteriology into an acceptance also of his Ethical and Moral Philosophy. Now, whether or not Augustine’s conception of Original Sin is accurate, I think the Reformer’s embrace of his Moral Philosophy was improper, given his Platonic presuppositions and his inability to get away from some of their more fundamental beliefs. This is one of the reasons why it seems that there is such a discrepancy between Old and New Testaments. The interpreters of the Old Testament who informed much of the tradition of the Early Church were in fact Hebrews themselves, and Jewish Rabbis. However, the first interpreters of the New Testament after the Apostolic Creeds were holdovers of Greek education. Thus, there emerge certain dichotomies that unnecessarily now plague the Faith as a result of the infiltration of the norms and beliefs of the time.

I say all of this to mitigate the overraction to books and movies like Da Vinci Code. I obviously do not embrace the core tenets espoused in the book, but I reject the supposition that says that the Faith would be destroyed or rendered moot if those tenets were true. Let us examine this logically. If we consider the primary argument of the book: namely that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had children, it does not inherently contradict any of the teachings of the Scriptures. The Scriptures say that Christ was sinless. Marriage and sexual intercourse are not sinful for us, and we must infer, as a result, that they would not have essentially be sinful for Christ. This is not an argument that it happened, but merely a caution against the sometimes rabid responses we hear from the fundamentalist right-wing of the Church who are literalist and exclusionist in their hermeneutics. I do not want to seem like I am being radical, but simply objective and logical.

Now, I still haven’t answered your question, though I felt it was necessary to preface my answer with the foregoing commentary. You are correct that, to date, there has been no new religion spawned or any (new) backlash from feminists against the Church (as I have noted previously, the Church has done enough in actual history to get such backlash). I think that this, just like any other book or movie, has entertainment appeal. Take the Chronicles of Narnia for example. It was an acclaimed film with a great cast of actors and directors, a wonderful plot and storyline, and raked in millions of dollars. But it didn’t cause a massive revival or awakening, in spite of its New Testament allegory. Even the Passion of the Christ did not have the kind of cultural impact that people expected it to have. Nobody walked out of the movie loving Jesus the way many predicted, and nobody walked out of the movie hating Jews like many predicted. It is sad to say that little affects our fat and entrenched culture these days, even the power of visual literature. Widespread cultural shifts take place one person at a time on a very compressed scale. The tipping point. We are due for one—one way or the other at least.

With something to think about...

Skinner

The Kingdom of Heaven

THE KINGDOM OF GOD

O WORLD invisible, we view thee,
O world intangible, we touch thee,
O world unknowable, we know thee,
Inapprehensible, we clutch thee!

Does the fish soar to find the ocean,
The eagle plunge to find the air--
That we ask of the stars in motion
If they have rumor of thee there?

Not where the wheeling systems darken,
And our benumbed conceiving soars!--
The drift of pinions, would we hearken,
Beats at our own clay-shuttered doors.

The angels keep their ancient places--
Turn but a stone and start a wing!
'Tis ye, 'tis your estrangèd faces,
That miss the many-splendored thing.

But (when so sad thou canst not sadder)
Cry--and upon thy so sore loss
Shall shine the traffic of Jacob's ladder
Pitched betwixt Heaven and Charing Cross.

Yea, in the night, my Soul, my daughter,
Cry--clinging to Heaven by the hems;
And lo, Christ walking on the water,
Not of Genesareth, but Thames!

Francis Thompson

Whether intentionally, intuitively, or accidentally, I believe that Francis Thompson better understood the notion of "the kingdom of God" than most modern theological commentators, preachers, and sunday school teachers. Particularly in the conservative evangelical community, and moreso even in dispensational and quaisi-dispensational circles, the "Kingdom of God" or "Kingdom of Heaven" is considered to be some sort of distant literal kingdom where Christ reigns in the "millennium" or else it is just heaven itself where God reigns from His throne.

I occaisionally turn Christian radio on to listen, as I find it insightful into the minds of the pop-theologians of the day, and see some of the consequences of their errors borne out in the hearts and minds of the laity that have so ardently trusted them. This week I happened to catch part of a sermon by David Jeremiah, who I find to be an excellent speaker, though I do not consider myself at all sympathetic with his theology. Dr. Jeremiah was preaching about the "kingdom." He referenced it with respect to Christ's coming earthly reign in the millennium, and commented that there is more mention of the millennium than any other event in the prophetic literature. I was instantly struck with the thought that something was amiss, as I could not for the life of me count that many. But as he continued to speak, I realized he was including all of the references to the "kingdom."

It seems that contemporary conservative Christians make the same mistake that the conservative Jews of the First Century made with respect to the nature and purpose of Christ's eternal ministry. The First Century Jews expected the Messiah to come and establish an earthly kingdom a la King David and wrest political control from Rome. St. John's Gospel quotes Christ saying explicitly "My kingdom is not of this world." The 21st Century Christian expects some future return of Christ to establish that earthly kingdom. Dr. Jeremiah said in his sermon that "Christ will return to reign on this earth the second time as he was expected to do the first time." It's not precisely obvious to me from where this expectation is derived.

The Revelation of St. John, Chapter 20, says only this about the "millennium"
"And I saw an angel coming down out of heaven, having the key to the Abyss and holding in his hand a great chain. He seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil, or Satan, and bound him for a thousand years. He threw him into the Abyss, and locked and sealed it over him, to keep him from deceiving the nations anymore until the thousand years were ended. After that, he must be set free for a short time.I saw thrones on which were seated those who had been given authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded because of their testimony for Jesus and because of the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his image and had not received his mark on their foreheads or their hands. They came to life and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (The rest of the dead did not come to life until the thousand years were ended.) This is the first resurrection. Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection. The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years."

There is no mention of rule from earth or heaven or where, it is extraordinarily vague. There are several reasons for this. First, Revelation was written as an account of a dream that St. John experienced. Anybody who thinks that Revelation is written in any way remotely literally completely ignores the context of its writing. It certainly does not detract from its value or validity, but we cannot properly interpret the text if we fail to understand that its very nature is inherently figurative. Conservative commentators obviously recognize this, but their interpretations make it a literally representational writing, meaning that the events in Revelation symbolize literal events that will occur at some point in the future. This to me is still far too literal and causes us to lose much of the meaning of the Revelation as well as of what "the kingdom" is.

Moreover, when we examine the references to the Kingdom in the Synoptic Gospels, as Brad Young points out in his work Jesus the Jewish Theologian, the parables of the Leaven and the Mustard Seed "illustrate the progressive growth of the kingdom...The major theme of both of these illustrations is this miraculous growth. The idea of a sudden, total reversal of the present situation is not congruous with these parables of progressive growth."

Similarly, in the Beatitudes, Christ admonishes thus, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven." I again quote from Young, "Modern interpreters have somtimes missed the message of the kingdom of heaven. It is not about the future age. The kingdom is not heaven in the sense that someone dies to inter in. It is neither the church nor a denomination. It is not given over to human leaders for their custodial care. Jesus did not view the kingdom as a political ideology or program. The kingdom is a process which cannot be imposed upon others through political activism. The kingdom comes by God alone. It is a divine force in the world that brings healing to suffering humanity."

Many people probably wonder why the interpretation of the kingdom passages of Scripture is important. I would argue that it has tremendous implications for the way we interpret many of the ethics passages in the Pauline Epistles. For example, in Paul's Epistle to the Galatian church, he says "The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God."

Knowing what "the kingdom of God" means is incredibly important to the understanding of Paul's admonition. Does he mean that people who are envious or jealous or ambitious are not going to have eternal life? No, I would argue that this is directly contradictory with the words of Christ when he says "Whosoever believes...shall not perish but have everlasting life." Indeed, the kingdom of heaven, when properly understood, sheds immense light on New Testament ethics. The punishment, if we even ought to use that term, for those things Paul lists above, is not damnation to hell--but a lack of the realization of the kingdom of heaven in the present age. The leavening process is slowed or stopped in the presence of such vices and sins. If the kingdom of heaven represents the peacemaking or whole-making process that we understand in the context of Jewish teachings is what Christ was speaking of in the Beatitudes, for example, then we see the sin is not punished with some slap on the wrist or electrical shock, but that sin is its own consequence for it prevents us from the realization of peace and wholeness.

In my view, this gives me a far greater incentive to maintain New Testament ethical standards, as the consequences of a breach of those standards is much more tangible than the far-off threat of some ethereal hell. Similarly, the wonder of wholeness and fulfillment here on earth is an enticing prospect compared with the again intangible reward of heaven. This does not mean that I do not believe in heaven or hell, but I would argue that if we understand New Testament ethics solely in the context of eternal reward or everlasting punishment then we completely disregard the importance of our earthly existence. It is quite heretical, in my view, when Evangelicals use phrases like "this life doesn't matter" and "it's only the next life that counts." That is directly contraposed to the teachings of the New Testament, and the Incarnation itself. This life matters quite a lot, and the physical existence we have on earth is extremely important to the New Testament writers, on par I would argue with our spiritual existence. Though the duality therein I believe to be disputable.

Francis Thompson's poem captures the spirit of the Kingdom better than any other writing, and not because it explicitly describes what the Kingdom is or where it is like Young does in his work of theology, but because Thompson's poem exposes to us the practical implications of the Kingdom in this life. His point is quite clear: we try to see the world when we cannot; we try to know the world when we cannot; we try to understand the world when we cannot, and it is foolish. That is the point of his next line "Does the fish soar to find the ocean? The eagle plunge to find the air?" He notices so clearly that we look for things in far off places that are right in front of us. "Not where the wheeling systems darken and our benumbed conceiving soars"--no, if we would recognize it, the meaning of life and the truth of life is directly in front of us. And this is his ultimate conclusion "Lo! Christ walking on the water, not of Genesareth, but Thames."

And therein is the inheritance of the Kingdom of God, for the life of Christ typified love, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self control. And it is through those virtues that we are fulfilled and inherit the Kingdom of Heaven.