Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 56 (May 2013)

A brief plug before this outing. Someone asked how I keep track of various internet things. My secret is the wonder that is Pocket. People send me stuff or I see stuff on my RSS reader (NetNewsWire if you’re interested), and then I click pocket in the browser – and can then check them out off-line on my phone on trains and tubes etc. Simple really – so there you are.

Sacred Treasure

• This is a wakeup call – a global rich list tied to an appeal to donate to the world’s poorest. Very simple, very effective.
• A more interesting conversation now that “Richard Dawkins has lost…”
• A brief but pastorally important response to suicide amongst believers.

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 55 (April 2013)

Oooooops – this is seriously late!! Many apologies. Been rather a busy week and completely forgot to post this!

Sacred Treasure

• Shhh!! Chris Green on introvert preachers and introvert lightbulb changers
• Eddie Arthur quotes the wonderful Oscar Muriu on the traps of western (though here, particularly American) missionaries in E. Africa.

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 54 (March 2013)

Sacred Treasure

• Is there a new US-style religious Right in the UK – Theos argues no
• Research shows that if you ‘survive’ first 10 years of marriage, you’re more likely to last the course as divorce rates for that stage haven’t shifted much
• This is a bit of a surprise for this particular blog: 10 reasons why Creationism should be taught in schools

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 53 (February 2013)

Sacred Treasure

• Great stuff from Keller: Preaching in a Secular Culture
• This is good: 8 ways preachers harm the depressed
• Fantastic news: Proc Trust makes its audio archive available for free download.

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 52 (January 2013)

HAPPY NEW YEAR! Here’s to a great 2013!

Sacred Treasure

• Law and Grace in Les Miserables
• Important booklet on Prosperity Gospel made available by the Theology Network
• Why CSLewis’ Mere Christianity should have bombed… and the lessons we can learn
• It’s done the rounds – but no less fun for that: Higgs vs Dawkins on Atheist fundamentalism

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 51 (December 2012)

Sacred Treasure

• Eddie Arthur has provided some important updated stats on Bible Translation.
• An interesting response to voting in a presidential election
• Barnabas Piper on 7 things a kind wants from his pastor dad – really helpful stuff here

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 50 (November 2012)

Wow – how about that!? The 50th map of monthly treasure!

Enjoy…

Sacred Treasure

• Rowan Williams’ recent interesting Theos lecture on The Person and the Individual
• Tim Keller has been involved with creating a new catechesis – looks very interesting indeed
• In case you missed it, here are the links to the recent, interesting series at All Souls: Great Lies of our Time
  

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 49 (October 2012)

Sacred Treasure

• A heart-rending 16thC letter of grief from a pregnant widow to her now buried husband.
• Very interesting interview in Third Way with Tanni Grey-Thompson (Britain’s greatest paralympian)
• Covenant Seminar in St Louis have put some great free courses online in their Worldwide Classroom
  

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 48 (September 2012)

Sacred Treasure

• Bart Ehrman is a  widely respected atheist NT scholar – this is an important site that engages with many of his controversial (though not particularly original) assertions
• The complexities of translation: you never realised John 3:16 could be so complicated – a great little video from Wycliffe
• Phillip “Red Tory” Blond has a very interesting piece on Western Political Bankruptcy and what ‘is coming sooner than you think.’

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 47 (August 2012)

Sacred Treasure

• Nick Spencer writes the new Cambridge Paper on The Bible and Politics
• Catherine Weston has an interesting blog here reflecting on her experiences working across cultures.
• Threads is a pretty cool initiative by some media folk at EA – definitely worth following 

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 46 (July 2012)

Sacred Treasure

• Religious people are psychotic apparently… Interesting article by Jules Evans from Wired – a classic sign of the prevailing culture that values pragmatism over truth.
• A very interesting critique of the US Christian right from a member of the US Christian right (HT Carl Trueman)

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 45 (June 2012)

Sacred Treasure

• For fans, this will be a huge treat. Abraham Kuyper’s legacy is online c/o Princeton. For others, definitely worth a browse…
• Amazing story: The Passion Play in ‘Angola’
• This sums up SO much of where our culture has come to – with Bertrand Russell’s new Liberal Decalogue, his personal 10 Commandments from way back in December 1951. Fascinating. There is a lot of practical wisdom here too.

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 44 (May 2012)

Sacred Treasure

• A really impressive and helpful Holy Week Timeline
• An American anthropologist spent 4 years fully embedded in 2 Vineyard churches in the US. This is a review of revealing result.
• A great project to make the vast catalogue of Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ sermons available online.

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 43 (April 2012)

Sacred Treasure

• The importance of being forgivers in ministry… helpful, brief piece by Paul Tripp
• Keeping Pastor Yousef on the agenda – remember his extraordinary letter from January 2011
• Nice brief summary of Craig Keener’s helpful rebuttal of Hume’s objection to the miraculous: Hoist with his own petard

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 42 (March 2012)

Sacred Treasure

• A very important challenge for all those from ‘dominant cultures’ to walk the path of humility over at the other ‘Q’ (HT Lauri)
• Interesting take on the Bible and Imperialism from Peter Leithart (HT Antony B)

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 41 (February 2012)

Sacred Treasure

• John Piper offers some intriguing insights into why he loves G K Chesterton, despite the latter’s repudiation of Calvinism.
• The Bible becomes a best-seller in Norway…
• An interesting new Cambridge Paper: Guy Brandon takes a utilitarian approach to sexual freedom and assess the financial cost

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 40 (January 2012)

HAPPY NEW YEAR from Q, one and all!

Sacred Treasure

• VERY grateful to have been sent this last month – Tim Keller on why Ministry can be dangerous to your health. Excellent.
• Lots has been written about the passing of Christopher Hitchens. But worth reading are definitely the appreciation by his (Christian) brother, Peter; and that of former debater Douglas Wilson. Also check out Tim Coomar’s thoughtful piece.

Q marks the spot – Treasure Map 39 (December 2011)

Sacred Treasure

• William Lane Craig certainly made waves during his October visit to the UK. Here one person testifies to how Richard Dawkins had led him to Christ (!), and an interesting if rather provocative article in the Telegraph.
• I like this – a Periodic Table of the Bible from Visual Unit
• Woody Allen and the Evangelicals?!
• And the influence of John Stott on American Evangelicalism at Huffington Post
  

Inconsistencies and Impositions in Victorian New York: the dangers of Christian presumptions

I didn’t quite know what to expect having picked this book up in the States last year. I think I assumed it would be something on the lines of a Victorian version of Hustle or the fascinating novel Dizzy City by my old friend Nicholas Griffin (who is certainly NOT to be confused with his odious BNP namesake). You know, a fun, historical romp through true stories of New York hucksters and con-artists.

But it wasn’t quite that at all. In fact, the more I read of this enjoyable, well-written but sometimes awkwardly structured, book, the more I realised it had serious intent. In fact it was sad but unfortunately recognisable in its portrayal of Christianity.

The Fantastical World of the "Lunarians"

For the focus is of a series of anonymously written articles in the pioneering penny-newspapers of 1835. This became known as The Great Moon Hoax. In time, it became clear that they were the work of English émigré, Richard Adams Locke. But they gripped the whole of New York and were later serialised in many other cities’ papers. He described in great detail the apparent findings of the famous astronomer English Sir John Herschel from his Cape Town Observatory: an entire civilisation of flying man bats and other fantastical creatures living on the moon. People discussed at great length whether or not it could possibly be true. The city was divided.

Absurd Impositions

One thing that few people realised, however, even after Locke came clean, was that he was not seeking to create a hoax – but to write a satire. He was satirising the extraordinary lengths to which some theologians would go in an effort to bend and influence scientific discoveries to their worldview.

So The Sun and The Moon is, in fact, a book about widespread reactions against the Christian gospel and contains a cast of many names well known to those familiar with the period: Edgar Allan Poe, P T Barnum, the Herschel family, even the father of James Gordon Bennett (whom I’d previously only encountered as a mild expletive!). Integrating science and theology is of course a noble and even essential enterprise. But the lengths to which people would go does no credit to either science or theology. Here is one example that especially got under Locke’s skin, taken from a book called Celestial Scenery.

In his letter Locke addressed only a single point from Celestial Scenery, which he believed would be sufficient to illustrate “the serious trespasses of Dr Dick’s theological school of philosophy upon the paramount jurisdiction of physical science”. Thomas Dick had long insisted – the face of substantial evidence to the contrary – that there could be no volcanoes on the moon. Volcanoes, like earthquakes and hurricanes, were evidence of God’s displeasure, and God could be displeased only with sinners; because the lunarians existed in a state of innocence, their landscape would not be blemished with such agents of physical destruction. “Is not this pretty stuff to pass for philosophy,” asked Locke, “and to be presented to our youth as a rule of judgement in determining questions of fact?”

The real world of nature, he pointed out, contains an astonishing multiplicity of functions, and it was the height of arrogance – not to mention pitiable scientific reasoning – to reserve to oneself the right to define certain of them, arbitrarily, as the products of ‘goodness’ or ‘sin’.

The fang of the viper, the claws of the tiger, the tail of the spider, the sing of the wasp, and the beak and talons of the eagle, are as ‘very good’ for their respective purposes, as the milky foundations of the mammalia, or the curious chrysalis of the butterfly… (Moon & Sun, p278)

Unfortunately, by such extreme lengths, the cause of apologetic integration was severely discredited. It demonstrates the need to be very careful about what reductionist assumptions we bring to bear on the discussions. For is it really the case that volcanoes can only be understood as a sign of judgement? Or that lunarians are necessarily innocent? Etc etc etc.

Distressing Inconsistencies

P T Barnum

Another of the subplots of the book, sadly, is the inconsistencies of Christians during the Second Great Awakening. Barnum was a fascinating figure, the inventor of the ‘humbug’ which he saw not as a con, but as an entertainment.

As P T Barnum explained in his book on the subject, a humbug “consists in putting on glittering appearances – outside show – novel expedients, by which to suddenly arrest public attention, and attract the public eye and ear.’ Superficially, at least, Barnum’s humbug is similar to Edgar Allen Poe’s diddle, as each is a form of hoax. The diddle, however, is carefully designed to preclude any awareness that it has taken place: the grocery story owner does not realize he has been tricked out of his whiskey, or the camp-meeting attendee out of his bridge toll. A humbug, on the other hand, noisily calls attention to itself; it also allows for the possibility of doubt, and requires consent from those who participate in it. The humbug might well turn out to be authentic (many of Barnum’s attractions were just what they were advertised as being), but whether it is true or false, the customers must depart believing they have gotten their money’s worth. A promoter who fails to provide his customers what Barnum called a “full equivalent for their money” will be denounced as a swindler and a fraud, while one who delivers a proper humbug will find his customers coming again and again – the first time because they believe his attraction is authentic, the second time because they are not sure, and the third time to figure out how the trick has been pulled off. The entertainment lies in the nature of the attraction (although as Barnum pointed out, a certain amount of ‘glitter’ is essential) than in the implicit competition between patron and promoter, each one seeking to outwit the other in a game of deception. (p263)

But one of his key influences was the small-town Christianity of his childhood, one which he resolutely rejected in adulthood. And he had many of his ideas from the cons pulled off by Christians – in contrast to whom, he liked to think, he had seized the moral high ground. This is a simple illustration of this:

Barnum loved to tell the story of a grocer who doubled as the deacon at the town’s church. One morning, before breakfast, he called down to his clerk:

“John, have you watered the rum?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And sanded the sugar?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And dusted the pepper?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And chicoried the coffee?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then come up to prayers.” (p103)

This was clearly someone who hadn’t read his Bible, and in particular his Leviticus 19 or Amos 8. But it is all too believable.

A challenge

I enjoyed the book as it brought to life the streets of early Victorian New York in a remarkable way. But I was also challenged afresh: for the acute need for both rigour in our apologetic and integrity in our living. And there, but for the grace, go I…

The White Mountain: timelapsed Milky Way

All too short, but epic in scope, and too wonderful for words…

Taken on Mauna Kea, Hawai’i: The White Mountain by charles leung

…and he made the stars also…

HT John Naughton